GoRunway
Confession time: the marie claire beauty department are not the regular recipients of manicures. We love everything about them, from the indulgence of having someone tend to our nails to experimenting with different polish colours, but we just don’t get them that often, and it’s all because of one thing: chips.
We are the kind of department that takes our polish off at the first sign of chips, which means, when you factor in what comes with, you know, life (phone and keyboard tapping, opening mail, housework) our manicures are really only presentable for two or three days, tops.
We take the usual steps to help our manis go the distance, but, and here’s another confession, there are a few things we maybe don’t always do that we really should:
- Before applying polish, use a nail polish remover, even if your nails are bare (try Sally Hansen’s acetone-free version). This helps remove the natural oils from the nails, and provides the proper foundation for a mani.
- Wet nails expand, which means that when the nail bed dries and shrinks, the polish will crack. Skip the soak at the salon, and don’t do a DIY mani straight after a shower or bath.
- Don’t shake the bottle – this just leads to bubbles, which lead to chips. Instead, hold vertically and roll between the palms.
- Hand sanitizers can be drying, so stick to hand washes (Natio’s formula cleanses and nourishes).
- And on the topic of dehydration, apply a nail oil (like this Body Shop one) every day to prevent the likelihood of dried-out polish chipping.
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