Ultimate Nail Polish Tips: Everything You Need To Know

My Top Nail Tips

First of all, I did a whole post on how to achieve healthy and strong nails, so check that out if you want  tips on that and to find out my top products.

This post will be on specific tips: longwearing polish, diy matte nails, quicker drying times and fixing dried up polish. Hopefully you guys will find this really helpful!

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1. All you need to know about matte nails.

Matte nails is always a beautiful thing. Bored of your current nails? Just mattify them and transform them into a completely new look.

You can quickly and easily achieve matte nails by using steam. After painting your nails, boil some water and place your nails in the steam for quick and easy matte nails. However, clearly you have to be careful this, as you can easily burn yourself with steam. A much easier way is to simply paint your nails with two coats about 10 minutes before taking a shower. In the shower, the steam will matte your nails! This is a safer and easier way to achieve DIY matte nails.

Matte nails applied to an originally shiny nail polish!

Alternatively, use a matte topcoat.

These are my favourite matte nail polish topcoats. The Rimmel one is amazing for its price, around £5, and has a great big brush. The American Apparel one is more expensive and also works fine.

American Apparel Matte Top Coat, Rimmel London Pro Matte Finish Mattifying Topcoat

2. Basecoats

Quite simply, always use a basecoat.

My favourite basecoats: NYX ridge filler, OPI natural nail, and ORLY bonder

Basecoats prevent staining (especially with deep purples or reds, we all know how annoying and horrible-looking this permanent stain is), and mean you need less coats of the polish to create an opaque look, as well as giving you a smooth nail base and therefore a much better final look to your finished nail polish application.

Another note on basecoats- if you're using a polish that just isn't that pigmented and you want it to show up better, try painting a coat of white on first. It makes a huge difference, I promise.

OPI Nail Lacquer in White, Next nail polish in White from their French Manicure set

3. Fix dried up nail polish

One of the most annoying things is when your favourite nail polish becomes thick, clumpy and begins to dry out.

There is no way to properly prevent this, but when this happens there are two ways to fix it. Either buy a specialist thinner, I know seche do one which is specially designed for their topcoat seche vite, but will probably work on other polishes, or otherwise just add a bit of nail polish remover! It really thins the polish out and won't affect the quality of your polish. Bear in mind that this only works to an extent though.

4. Quicken drying time

I have a few tips on how to quicken the drying time of your nail polish. There's nothing more annoying than that feeling of being disabled for like 40 minutes after freshly painting your nails- we've all been there.

First quick tip is don't paint the layers too thick, and always wait at least ten minutes until the layer is dry before adding your second coat. If the nail polish isn't quite dry and you add another coat, it'll only make it more prone to smudging.

To quicken the drying time, straight after painting your nails plunge them into a bowl of ice water. Any cooler water works really, but they'll dry even quicker the colder the water is. Hold them there for a minute or a couple of minutes and they'll be rock hard and non-smudgable! 

Or use a specialist drying spray. Spray it on your nails and it hardens them much quicker.

5. Finally, quickly get rid of any overdrawn nail polish on the skin around your nails

Easier than using a q-tip dipped in polish remover- just wash your hands with warm water and it kind of lifts up the product on your skin, it works amazingly. Or try this in the shower, and most will go.

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Did you find this post useful? What are your top nail tips? Let me know in the comments below.

Nail-care Megapost: Achieve and Maintain Healthy, Strong Nails

Nail Care Top Tips

Here I will share with you my key tips and products to help you grow your nails and maintain their health.

I love long nails, so I've learnt over the years the best way to get them to the right stage, and avoid breakages.

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Firstly, it is extremely important to file your nails regularly, and properly.

Filing your nails regularly not only keeps your nails in shape, but it encourages growth and keeps them strong too. Shape is extremely important, as if your nails are growing at odd shapes, they will be more prone to splitting and breaking, and we all know how annoying that is.

I use this glass nail file from Paname

Crystal or glass nail files are much better than the regular board files, as they are more gentle, whilst actually working quicker and being more effective. Now I've got one, there's no way I'm going back. 

Also glass files prevent as much tearing, which used to be a huge problem for me. You can get them from around £6, and they're usually around the £10 mark. I don't think this price is unreasonable, especially as these files last way longer than the regular ones.

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If you suffer from nail splitting, or weak nails, then I suggest some sort of nail strengthener. The best ones by far are the 'Nail Envy' ones from OPI. Sally Hansen also has a great one, for a slightly cheaper price. Are your nails weak? When you push directly down on them, do they hold or do they bend? I used to have extremely thin, bendy and peeling nails, and the weakness would mean they would break all the time. But filing them properly and from time to time if necessary using a nail strengthener has ensured I don't have any sort of problem anymore.

The good thing about this sort of treatment is that you can wear it as a basecoat underneath nail polish, meaning that you can treat your nails whilst wearing a colour on them.

This is the 'sensitive and peeling' Nail Envy, they're quite expensive, around the £15 mark, but they are amazing. I also had the matte version, which I actually preferred. This one, somewhat ironically, tends to peel off the nails after about a day, so I don't recommend using it as a basecoat under nail polish.

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My next tip is cuticle care. I use three different products, but you don't necessarily need to use them religiously, just once in a while.

Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream

This cuticle cream is amazing. Basically it softens your cuticles and generally helps the condition of your nails, plus it has a lovely sweet lemon smell. I even have a bigger tub as backup when this runs out, not that you need to use much at all.

I also own a cuticle gel and nourishing cuticle pen. The gel is a lifesaver for me. A tiny squeeze of this is enough to easily remove the bits of cuticle on your nails with just a little rub. It's not painful at all, and takes seconds. I just personally hate pushing back cuticles with a cuticle-pusher. It's uncomfortable!

Excess cuticle on the nail is annoying because it obstructs some of the part of nail you're meant to put polish on. 

Ms. Manicure Cuticle Gel, Elf Noruishing Cuticle Pen

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Finally, I recommend always using a basecoat underneath polish. This prevents your polish from affecting the quality of your nails, and also means you won't face staining, especially bad when you wear red or deep purple polish. Nobody wants stained nails.

Three of my favourite basecoats- NYX Ridge Filler, OPI Natual Basecoat and ORLY rubberised bonder basecoat

 Did you find this post helpful? What are your top nail tips? Let me know in the comments below.