DIY easy, awesome manicure tip
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free skin care · Thu Dec 28, 2006 3:29 am

Hello Everyone,

I've been trying to give myself manicures for ages, and I happened upon a tried and true DIY manicure treatment that could not be simpler or more effective:

**soaking your nails (or toenails) in hot water with dashes of milk and olive oil.**

Try it and you will see: softer, moisturized, perfect cuticles and healthy nails.

I've tried to give myself a full manicure with and without this treatment, and it makes all the difference in the world. I think the olive oil helps to moisturize and the milk has lactic acids, which help to exfoliate. the warm water merely softens cuticles.

For the record, here's my at home manicure process:
1. remove polish, file nails into desired shape
2. soak hands in warm water/olive oil/milk (or cream) for 15 minutes
3. apply cuticle remover for 2 minutes
4. gently push back cuticles
5. cut excess with cuticle nipper
6. wash hands and use wet nail stone against cuticles and edges of nails to remove any rough edges
7. apply nail polish remover to nails with q-tip to prime nails
8. buff nails with nail buffer
9. polish with high-quality base coat
voila!
perfect manicure.

I bite my cuticles and have nails that peel, and this procedure once per week keeps my nails in excellent shape.

--avalange

p.s. anyone out there used chinoiserie's rococo? it is the most gorgeous color, but the quality of polish isn't great.

free skin care · Thu Dec 28, 2006 4:07 am

Thank you for your sharing. It's really useful! I'll try to follow your instruction.

Sometimes I'm just too lazy to do manicure. Mad

free skin care · Thu Dec 28, 2006 7:28 am

Avalange, you're doing too much for your nail care! I would just leave cuticles alone and don't even push them back. Mine are fabulous and I do NOTHING to them but use nail oil to put back moisture and threw out all my nail hardners and polish. All I use is a white nail pencil and my nail oil and my nails look lovely!

free skin care · Thu Dec 28, 2006 7:38 am

Sounds awesome avalange! Thank you Wink

free skin care · Thu Dec 28, 2006 8:05 am

Thank you!

free skin care · Thu Dec 28, 2006 10:15 am

Susie Q,

really? my cuticles grow out of control, all the way up my nail, and on the sides, and if I just let them grow, they take over! Also, I can't go bare, nail-wise, since my nails tend to peel and get really damaged on the ends... Not sure what I do that makes them perpetually that way--I use gloves when I do the dishes. Anyways, I can't really paint my nails without pushing the cuticles back, since otherwise I'd be painting on the cuticles...
What do you suggest, and what kind of nail oil do you use? Thanks!

--avalange

Sun Dec 31, 2006 10:56 pm

my sister and i share the same genes but our nails/hands couldn't be more different.

she's blessed w/ perfect nailbeds and almost non-existent cuticles. i'm cursed with funky nail shapes and dry, dry, dry cuticles. it's horrible. i HAVE to constantly work at my nails whereas she doesn't do a darn thing and people compliment her all the time.

Thanks for the tip, tho. It makes sense and I'm going to try it tonight!!!

free skin care · Mon Jan 01, 2007 2:05 am

Thank you for your ideas.
My cuticles get raggedy too and I feel embarrassed sometimes.

free skin care · Mon Jan 01, 2007 1:12 pm

I used to soak my nails in warm olive oil all the time, worked great!

Sat Jan 06, 2007 9:34 am

never heard of that one before will try it!

free skin care · Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:17 pm

another great hand/nail tip for anyone using the aspirin mask-just rub the left-overs on the backs of your hands and into your cuticles. It helps banish brown spots and softens hands and cuticles, but put cream on after as they feel dry quickly.

free skin care · Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:33 pm

avalange wrote:

Hello Everyone,

I've been trying to give myself manicures for ages, and I happened upon a tried and true DIY manicure treatment that could not be simpler or more effective:

**soaking your nails (or toenails) in hot water with dashes of milk and olive oil.**

Try it and you will see: softer, moisturized, perfect cuticles and healthy nails.

I've tried to give myself a full manicure with and without this treatment, and it makes all the difference in the world. I think the olive oil helps to moisturize and the milk has lactic acids, which help to exfoliate. the warm water merely softens cuticles.

For the record, here's my at home manicure process:
1. remove polish, file nails into desired shape
2. soak hands in warm water/olive oil/milk (or cream) for 15 minutes
3. apply cuticle remover for 2 minutes
4. gently push back cuticles
5. cut excess with cuticle nipper
6. wash hands and use wet nail stone against cuticles and edges of nails to remove any rough edges
7. apply nail polish remover to nails with q-tip to prime nails
8. buff nails with nail buffer
9. polish with high-quality base coat
voila!
perfect manicure.

I bite my cuticles and have nails that peel, and this procedure once per week keeps my nails in excellent shape.

--avalange

p.s. anyone out there used chinoiserie's rococo? it is the most gorgeous color, but the quality of polish isn't great.

Just how much is a "dash of milk and olive oil"?

I agree that using nail oil or balm is really the best to keep nails/cuticles looking healthy. I personally find a nail OIL easier to use but I do also like Burt Bees Lemon Cuticle cream.

free skin care · Mon Jan 08, 2007 7:42 pm

girlblue wrote:

my sister and i share the same genes but our nails/hands couldn't be more different.

she's blessed w/ perfect nailbeds and almost non-existent cuticles. i'm cursed with funky nail shapes and dry, dry, dry cuticles. it's horrible. i HAVE to constantly work at my nails whereas she doesn't do a darn thing and people compliment her all the time.

Thanks for the tip, tho. It makes sense and I'm going to try it tonight!!!

girlblue, it's the same with me and my sister, too! Her nails always look perfect and she does nothing to them. And I know it's not because her diet is any better than mine...she lives mainly on M&M's Confused

free skin care · Tue Jan 09, 2007 2:13 am

Quote:

Just how much is a "dash of milk and olive oil"?

You must not cook as often as I do Wink

Dash is a cooking term. it literally means a one-second splash, and that's the beauty of it, you don't need that much at all. I've tried soaking in mostly milk and oil, and I've had the same results.

Tue Jan 23, 2007 2:08 pm

thanks for sharing... will try it out!

free skin care · Wed Jan 24, 2007 4:40 pm

This will sound stupid...but what is cuticle remover? I've had the stuff put on my cuticles (or whatever there was left of them) whenever I've had a manicure but I've never paid much attention to this until now that I HAVE cuticles, thanks to Carekate's lemon-neem product. So, do I need it to use at home. Will any cream work?

Susie Q, if you're around, yes, please do tell us more about your routine.

Avalange, I love the dash of milk and olive oil. I use milk in my bath, maybe I'll add a bit of olive oil too - this counts as a nail soak, right? Wink

free skin care · Wed Jan 24, 2007 4:51 pm

cat,

i just did this (Milk + EVOO soak) again tonight after neglecting my poor hands for about a week = bedraggled nails, bloody cuticles! Crying or Very sad

I swear it works like a charm and gives me "mani-pedi" nails!!!!
Amazing. I also tried to take Susie Q's advice and leave my cuticles alone for a couple of weeks, but you see what happened--I just cannot do it! Perhaps Carekate can come and give us some ideas as to how to take care of them...

I should say that when I do this soak, my nails actually feel like they are being fortified and nourished--they seem to harden, and they soak up all the oils. My cuticles are soft enough just to push back, but when I do that, they form annoying bunches of skin around my nail bed... So I cut that off.

I cannot believe no one has actually tried this yet--it seems like a pretty basic, uninteresting tip, but it works so well, it's bizarre... I am not sure the bath trick would actually work for the nails... It's got to be ridiculously nice additive to a bath, however... next bath I'm trying it!

--avalange

free skin care · Wed Jan 24, 2007 5:53 pm

Avalange, this is a great tip! I do something very similar to this, although I use Baby Bee products. When I do a manicure or pedicure, I fill a large bowl with warm water, then I add a scoop of the Baby Bee Buttermilk bath (contains both milk and buttermilk) and a splash of the apricot oil. The smell really relaxes me, and it's just like you said, it makes ALL the difference in how my mani or pedi turns out.

free skin care · Thu Jan 25, 2007 4:27 am

Oooh, GREAT idea for a thread! Very Happy

I've a few DIY mani/pedi tips too!

I posted them on my MUA notepad (I used to do a load of swapping for nail polishes and stuff over there when I had more free time), but I can't remember if I shared them here or not so here they are again -- just remember that this was originally written/geared toward my fellow MUA nail-polish buffs:

CareKate’s Secret to a great home manicure or pedicure:

By no means do I consider myself a professional nail technician or a manicure/pedicure guru the likes of which dominate the Nail Board with all of their fantabulous suggestions and advice, but whom always leave me feeling like a complete neophyte when it comes to all manner of having or keeping perfectly groomed tips or toes!

With that said, I *have* learned a couple of things about having gorgeous nails from the endless beauty magazines I read – the majority of which were seemingly written by beauty editors who quite obviously have been compensated to provide glowing write ups and endorsements for crappy products and/or print dubious “expert advice” that we as consumers are supposed to take as gospel simply because the pearls of wisdom were allegedly given by the nail tech or hairdresser-to-the-stars but which are more likely as not provided by the girl who sweeps the floor at the salon where Nicole Richie gets her nails done or the shampoo girl at Jessica Simpson’s salon, but I digress – and/or the research I have conducted in developing my own DIY skincare recipes found within this notepad and/or the endless product testing I have conducted to determine which beauty products actually deserve all the hype and which are crap and should be relegated to the nearest rubbish bin (unfortunately, it seems like the latter far outweigh the former by a margin of at least 100:1!).

The point I am trying to make is that nail care is most definitely NOT my area of expertise – but if you want to know about any type of lip-care products or how to cultivate the longest, most lush and bat-worthy eyelashes possible, then I’m your girl!!! – so the information provided below is given merely to compliment whatever you are already doing.

And now, without further adieu:

HOW TO AVOID THE TELLTALE SIGNS OF A HOME MANICURE OR PEDICURE

A trick I learned with the orange-wood cuticle stick, that has made all the difference in giving me more professional results when painting my tips or my toes, is to use the pointy end to swipe all the way around the nail base to remove excess polish.

To me, there are two telltale signs for a homemade mani/pedi: 1) forgetting to use a topcoat to “seal” in the shine of your polish, and 2) having polish bleed past the surface of the nail and up onto the nail bed and cuticle area.

The way to prevent this is to use the pointy end of the orange stick and wipe it around the “crevice” between the nail surface and the nail bed/cuticle-area on all three sides of the nail to remove the excess polish. It sounds like such a simple thing, but it makes a world of difference when it comes to providing more professional-looking results!

And here are a couple of other helpful hints to yield salon-worthy tips and toes:

• After you’ve removed your old polish and/or used a cuticle remover to soften the dead or excess skin so it can be pushed back with your trusty orange-wood stick, but before you apply your new basecoat, make sure that your nails are completely clean and free of any sort of residue by moistening a papertowel with a bit of vinegar (white or ACV, it doesn’t matter) and swipe it over each nail.

This removes all oils or invisible soapy residues which will allow your polish to adhere to the nail more completely. You know when you can peel off your nail polish in a single giant hunk? The reason it’s peeling like that is because there was some sort of residue on the nail that prevented the paint from adhering to the surface of the nail!

The acidic vinegar also helps restore the PH-balance to your nails following those harsh, alkaline nail polish removers – unless, of course, you’ve been lucky enough to discover the wonders of the “Once Removed” nail polish remover and treatment system, which is the complete anti-thesis of all those horribly smelly nail polish removers of old...but even though I do use my trusty Once Removed to take off my old polish, I still followup with the ole vinegar wipe to ready my nails for a new coat of polish, even though the label instructions say it’s not necessary!

• To prolong your manicure or pedicure, apply 1 coat of your fave shiny topcoat (I love Essie’s Shine-e Polish Refresher) every 3-4 days to maintain the shiny, glossy look of your nails because they can begin to look dull in a very short period of time. The biggest culprit: simply taking a shower or bath can make ones tips or toes look dull, despite using a shiny topcoat. This is because of the dulling residue left by soap or shampoo/condtioner – remember those old “Zestfully Clean” bathsoap commercials where they demonstrated the soapy residue on a glass shower door? The same thing happens to your nails.

Don’t believe me? Next time you get out of the shower, make a point to rub down your polished nails with the towel on one hand or foot and compare them to the other set of nails and look how much cleaner and shiny the nails are on the side you wiped down! Because of this, I make it a point to swipe down my fingernails and toenails every other day with a paper towel moistened with vinegar to remove all that dulling residue so my tips and toes look as glossy as they did the first day of my manicure/pedicure.

Okay, this concludes CareKate’s nail polish seminar for today!

free skin care · Thu Jan 25, 2007 8:50 am

Ooohhhh, thank you Carekate and Manslayerliz for the added tips. I have to re-iterate my question though: What is cuticle remover and do I need it? On a different note, I jinxed myself yesterday by bragging how I hadn't been picking my cuticles for weeks ...well, I ended up picking a couple last night (and not even because I was thinking of Baudelaire!) but at least I had Carekate's lemon-neem to the rescue and avalange, you are right, it helps the cuticle heal faster! Thanks for the tip (I think I am mixing two avalange threads here, isn't it??!)

free skin care · Thu Jan 25, 2007 12:37 pm

Carekate answered my question privately. Here's her answer in case anybody has the same question:

A cuticle remover is basically like an exfoliant for your nails and skin. Typically, it is an AHA-based product (usually lactic or glycolic acid or sometimes citric/fruit acids that work enzymatically) that softens cuticles and helps dissolve the "glue" that holds the cuticle skin cells together and/or makes the cuticle adhere to the nail bed so that you can gently loosen the overgrown cuticles (like the problem Avalange describes) and soften them enough so that you can push the cuticle back from the nail bed (or scrape the excess cuticle from the nail plate, in Avalange's case).

Some cuticle removers also include other ingredients to soften the cuticle to make it more pliable. You have to be REALLY careful when using these (make sure you follow the instructions EXPLICITLY!!!!!!) because if you don't rinse them off completely, or leave them on longer than the specified time, they can also actually soften the NAIL PLATE itself and damage it, in severe cases causing the nail plate to become porous (trust me, it's painful when that happens Confused

). The point I'm trying to make is if the label on your cuticle remover says "do not leave on for more than 30 seconds," by God, don't leave it on for more than 30 seconds or you will be sorrier than you'll know!!!! Shock

It's not mandatory to use a cuticle remover (or, at least, use one on a regular basis) unless you have serious problems with overgrown cuticles like what Avalange described. I have a similar problem with the cuticles on both of my "baby toes" -- THICK cuticle that is seriously overgrown so much that there's barely any actual nail protruding and I have to use one of those "professional," industrial strength cuticle removers that you can get at Sallys Beauty supply stores. Unfortunately, I don't have an answer on how to prevent these "gorilla cuticles" (as I not-so-affectionately call them) -- sorry! Sad

So long as you keep your cuticles well moisturized with a cuticle oil or balm, so that you can easily/gently push them back with a cuticle stick (i.e.: an orange-wood stick with a pointy end) and you don't have a lot of buildup of cuticle on the nails themselves (i.e.: a thin layer of what looks like dead skin that adheres to the nail around the perimeter of the nail and can't easily be rubbed off or removed), then you probably don't need to use a cuticle remover regularly. Just keep using your cuticle moisturizer to keep them soft and healthy!

HTH,
Carrie

free skin care · Thu Jan 25, 2007 2:12 pm

manslayerliz wrote:

Avalange, this is a great tip! I do something very similar to this, although I use Baby Bee products. When I do a manicure or pedicure, I fill a large bowl with warm water, then I add a scoop of the Baby Bee Buttermilk bath (contains both milk and buttermilk) and a splash of the apricot oil. The smell really relaxes me, and it's just like you said, it makes ALL the difference in how my mani or pedi turns out.

wow, manslayerliz, I can almost visualize how indulgent and relaxing this would be... I've used both of the products you are referring to before, but never for that purpose. yum, yum yum!

--avalange

free skin care · Thu Jan 25, 2007 2:20 pm

cat and carrie:

thank you so much for your explanation and your tips! It all makes sense to me now: instead of attacking my gorilla cuticles (mine are more like hyperactive spider monkeys, but I have gorillas on my pinkie toes too!) every week, I'm now going to keep them well-moisturized, so they will be easy to very gently push back and tame when it comes time to do so. I spent all day leafing through tomes, so carrie's lemon neem balm came in "handy" (pun intended) today!

And Carrie, I usually use acetone or alcohol as a wipe before I paint, but now I will use ACV--my new all-purpose cosmetic...

Another tip that I use, which works for me, but may not work for some:
I get completely ready, i mean, keys out and everything, and I do a 'touch-up' of my nail color right at the edges, and then I finish with a maintenance top coat. It is nice because I find that nail polish dries best in the open air, and by the time I'm reaching for my metro ticket, they are dry--and impossibly shiny and professional looking. Be careful of nicking the fresh coat, though, or it will all be a waste--it takes practiced concentration to pull this off!

--avalange

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