I am heading out for Fedora - my hubby has dug his heels in against the currently “oh so popular” black polish, but I am going to keep trying with this one, a nice dark chocolate cool brown. 
Artificial Nails, Manicures, Nail News, Nail Polish Colors, Nail Trends
I have had my eye out for Avon’s Instant Manicure Dry Nail Enamel Strips, as it is intriguing to me, but I cannot imagine that it actually works. When I say works, I mean is lasting and is pretty. There is a real nuance to applying nail polish that lasts and looks great, and I find it hard to believe that this product is going to cover all of those issues. I have questions:
Do you wear base coat? Top coat? Is is shiny after all of that pressing on it to get it into place? Can you apply top coat?
KOMO News has an article and an accompanying video that asks and attempts to answer the question - Does it work?
Instant Nails gets a thumbs up if your nails fit the strip sizes. Thumbs down for anyone with very wide finger nails. If they want it to work for everyone, Avon has some work to do.
Instant Manicure is sold in sets of 16 strips for $8.00 and comes in ten colors.
Avon says the finish lasts 14 days, and while the strips do dry to a nice hard finish, Rosie told me she found the nail tips chipped about as much as with regular nail polish.
I guess to them it worked, but I am a much tougher critic. I am thinking of giving it a try. Have you tried it?
Manicures, Nail Polish Colors, Nail Trends
Does this sound like you?
Even now, rarely a week goes by without my pinky bandaged. I seem to pick on the pinky the most.
My dad tried to get me to stop by shock therapy. Every time he saw my fingers in my mouth, he’d slap them out. I was shocked all right, but I didn’t stop and developed an eye twitch as well.
I know it’s an ugly habit. I’m always trying to quit.
The morning of my wedding, I got acrylic nails. By the reception, one nail was bitten off; the others didn’t make it through the honeymoon.
Someone told me regular manicures would help, but first my nails would have to grow past the quick. I would try and try, but there’d always be a hangnail, a rough edge or overgrown cuticle. My fingernails and teeth seemed to have a magnetic attraction.
I was 36 when I had my first manicure, and have had very few since then.
Source: Daily Bulletin
I hate to admit this, but I have been a nail biter for my whole life. I obviously have a hand to mouth horrendous habit that finds me biting my nails and cuticles, smoking (which I recently quit) and eating too much.
I have tried products like Orly No Bite, but nothing ever tasted bad enough for long enough. Honestly, regular manicures are the way to go for me, and they might be for you as well. If my nails are kempt, polished and my cuticles are moisturized, I won’t mess with them. As soon as they start going downhill or my cuticles start getting dry, here I come. I don’t care if your nails look as bad as the nails in this photo, get them done, or do them yourself, it will make a world of difference.
Manicures, nail biting, nail disorders, Natural Nails, OrlyThe Swedish Medical Center in Seattle has offered up this simple instruction on how to wash your hands - a frequently overlooked thing that can not only save your life, but can help your polish stay on a very long time too!
Artificial Nails, handwashing, Manicures
Lush’s Lemony Flutter is not just fun to say, it is a product that is great for your body, not just your nails and cuticles. I have a deep passion for shea butter and this is a shea butter based product that is filled with all sorts of other wonderful things. Here is the ingredient list from USA.lush.com:
Fresh Lemon Infusion (Citrus limonum), Shea Butter (Butyrospermum parkii), Beeswax (Cera alba), Lanolin, Soya Oil (Glycine Soja), Cold Pressed Avocado Oil (Persea gratissima), Mango Butter (Mangifera indica), Hydrogenated Palm Kernel Oil, Castor Oil (Ricinus communis), Perfume, Cold Pressed Wheatgerm Oil (Triticum vulgare), Lemon Oil (Citrus limonum), Lavender Oil (Lavendula hybrida), Tagettes Oil (Tagetes glandulifera), Chamomile Oil (Anthemis nobilis), Sodium Borate, Gardenia Extract (Gardenia jasminoides), Geraniol, *Limonene, *Linalool, Methylparaben, Propylparaben
Some pretty delightful stuff there. It smells like a dream too with the strong lemon infusion and the hint of Gardenia (probably my very favorite scent of all time). If you would like to give this a try - I bet you won’t be disappointed - it is available at Amazon.com and the Lush web site for $10.80.
Manicures, SuppliesI just love Glam - raaaaally I do - and have since the minute I discovered it, and am so glad to be a part of it now!!!
I am glad you have found your way here to one of my humble little online abodes and hope also that you will take a little time to look around while you are here. NailTechSecrets is my attempt to teach you all of the things I have learned from 20 or so years as a Nail Tech. Explore the categories to the right and learn all you care to know about manicures and pedicures and all the tricks I know about how to polish your nails so you get great long lasting color! There is tons more information here and tons more to come. If you have come searching for info about artificial nails, that is on the plan for the near future - I am gearing up and getting things organized for that now and I hope you will stay tuned, subscribe to the feed and keep posted on all the latest info on nail care and secrets from a career Nail Tech!
Please do come visit me at my other related blog, eBeautyDaily, which along with being a b5media blog, is also a Glam blog!
artificial nails, career, Glam.com, Manicures, manicures and pedicures, nail care, nail tech, pedicures, Polish that Lasts!, Welcome! 
If you are not aware, the only difference between a “regular” manicure and a French manicure is the polish. With a French Manicure, you are going to use a flesh colored polish over your whole nail, and a one of variety of colors of white polish on the tip, and sometimes the moon. You can do this on fingernails as well as toenails. The French Manicure has been popular for a very long time on your fingernails, and is currently extremely popular for the toes.
Choose your flesh colored polish carefully, taking note of your skin color. If your skin color is warm (you look and feel your best in yellows, oranges, browns, or the lighter shades of these colors) you will want to choose something peach colored. If your skin color is cool (blues, purples, fuchsia, black), you will want a light pink shade. You have many choices in the white department too. There are whites that are very translucent, and very opaque. There are ivories and snow whites. Generally speaking, if you are a warm skin tone, you will choose an ivory, and a cool skin tone will want a white. If you are more dramatic personality you will want a more opaque white, and if you are more subdued, a more translucent shade will suit you best. Of course, you are free as a bird to choose what you like best! Just use this as a guide if you have not decided what you like as of yet. Here is a post from eBeautyDaily that talks a little more in depth about colors. After applying your base coat, you want to apply two coats of flesh colored polish, using the three stroke technique I described earlier. At this point, I will suggest that you let your polish dry for about 10 minutes before you begin with the white.
The best way to do your white tips is to really support both hands, and starting at one side of your nail, swipe the brush slowly across the tip of your nail, following the natural line where your nail separates from the tip of your finger. The most important thing here is supporting BOTH hands. I rest the finger that is to be painted on the edge of a table, and the heel of my working hand either on the table, or sometimes somewhere on the hand that is getting polished. Hold them very still with the edge of the lightly loaded brush on the starting side of the nail and gently rotate the finger that is getting polished under the brush. You might find a better way to do it, but this is what works well for me, especially when working with my non-dominant
hand. Allow the white polish to dry for about 10 minutes before proceeding with the topcoat, as the topcoat brush will often pick up some white and paint it onto the flesh color. Not pretty!
If you would like to paint the moons, start at one side, just like the tips, and with the very tip of the brush, paint a teensy moon on your nail right next to the cuticle, and if you have moons there naturally, right over them. Wait until your polish is totally dry to clean up any mess on your cuticles. Mess on your cuticles is pretty much unavoidable when painting moons!
Unlike other people that might tell you to let your polish dry between coats, I am going to tell you to put it all on in one fell swoop. Polish is chemically designed to bond together, and as it all dries, it forms a coating that is much more durable if it all dries together. I promise that your nails will be dry enough to function just as quickly this way as they would be if you let your polish dry between coats.
The application of color is slightly different than that of the basecoat. Prepare the bottle by rolling it across the table, or between your palms, turning it upside down a time or two. NEVER shake your polish; this will almost definitely cause bubbles to appear in your polish. Prepare the brush the same way as you did the base coat, wiping the brush well when you first pull it out of the bottle, then redip the brush just to the top of the bristles. This time, rather than just letting that first drop go and then applying the polish, you want to slightly wipe one side of the brush against the rim, leaving just slightly less color on the brush than you did with the base coat. As you might expect, you will be putting thinner coats of color on than you did with the base coat.
Starting again with the pinky of your “right” hand, apply the color in three strokes only, the first down the center, and then one more on each side. Again, always start right next to the cuticle and pull the brush straight out, all the way off the end of the nail. After you have your three strokes done, run your brush across the tip end of the nail, just like you did with the base coat. Over my 18 years of doing nails, most of my clients have told me that they have never had polish stay on like mine does, and also that I am the only manicurist they have ever had who polished the tip ends of the nails. See the connection?
Now, the polish is going to look streaky and terrible to you now, and most mistakes in polishing are made right here, when people try to make the first coat look perfect. Just let it go for now. I promise the next coat will make it look much better. Go for that second coat, just as soon as you are done with the first one. Do it exactly the same way, remembering to coat those ends! Doesn’t it look much better now? If you are doing your toenails, STOP HERE! If you are doing your fingernails, then you are ready to immediately carry on to the Top Coat step.
Go to the bathroom and use that scrub brush and the liquid soap and warm running water one more time. Get all of the oils off those nails, top, sides and underneath. Dry hands and nails well with a towel, pushing cuticles one more time. Check for missed cuticle as well as ragged edges and take care of these things now, as we are preparing to polish!
Take a gauze pad with just a little acetone to dampen it, and quickly go over the nails (don’t forget the side grooves and underside). Now you are ready for polish! If you are at a friends house, or you need to go somewhere within the
hour, make sure your keys are handy and everything else you need is as convenient as possible. Go to the potty (don’t laugh, that is how I mess my nails up most often, by far!).
Stay tuned to learn about Polish That Lasts!
When you are finished with whichever treatment you choose, take your lap towel and with your finger behind the towel, give those cuticles a push back and you will find a good deal of any remaining cuticle rubs off. Get the lotion out from under your nails and out of the groves on the side of your nails. At this point, go over the surface of your nails with your 4 way buffer, starting with the most abrasive side, using it lightly, and ending with the smoothest side, which you will use with a little more vigor. Make sure that you completely cover your whole nail surface, from cuticle to tip end and from side to side. When you are finished with this, your nails should be smooth and pink and glossy all over. This is important for your polish to look its best for the longest time, and it increases circulation in your nails which is good for their (and YOUR) overall health. With your cuticle nippers nip ONLY what is sticking up and begging to be clipped off. You may think that your cuticles are thick and ugly, but just wait until they are filled with scar tissue from live skin being cut off.
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