Home Manicure: How to properly care for your hands
Masha Vorslav
Time and effort to salon manicure is not always enough besides, not everyone likes to entrust their hands to an unfamiliar master. You can do a home manicure in a comfortable environment for a new episode of a series or podcast and indulge yourself with the thought that you are doing two useful things at the same time. We have compiled a brief informative guide for hand care: it is unlikely that the recommendations will be useful to those who ate the manicure of the dog, so we will list the most necessary tools and techniques.
What is the basic procedure?
You can bring your hands in order quickly: half an hour is enough for everything about everything. You can shorten the nails for them, make a three-minute hand bath with warm water (no longer necessary because long time in the water is harmful for the nails), soften and move the cuticle and spread with cream and cuticle oil. If you do a manicure for the night, you can buy special spa gloves, thickly smear your hands with cream and put them on - you get a night hand mask that nourishes the skin better than the cream alone.
How to remove the length
If the nails are grown out strongly, you can use clippers or scissors, but to give the nails the same shape will only get a file. They differ in abrasiveness, but metal is best not to take at all, because they are most likely to injure the nail. It is necessary to select the files, based on the quality and thickness of your nails: the thinner and drier they are, the more sensitive the file should be. Abrasiveness is expressed in grips: the lower this number, the rougher the surface. For natural nails, it is advised to start with 180 grit or higher, but if the nails are thin, then you can even get along with a nail file. By the way, it is also better to get it: it will help to round the cut, so that the nail does not exfoliate. If you do not like to paint your nails, you can buy a very soft nail polisher to make your nails shine. For the standard "male" manicure, it is also useful, by the way.
How to get rid of cuticles
At home, we advocate an unedged manicure, because an inexperienced hand can cut off too much of the cuticle, and that should protect the nail from infections. And in general, keeping your hands in order is much easier with unedged. A cuticle remover and pterigia will be needed each time, like a metal or wooden tool, to move them away. Popular orange sticks can not cope with a particularly stubborn cuticle, so just in case you should get a metal spatula with a sharp end. Note that the remuver should be applied not only to the very cuticle, but also to the nail ridges and under the free edge of the nail - this will remove the coarse skin around the entire nail.
What to paint nails
Not any manicure involves staining nails, but if you like even concise nail art, you will have to make a couple more fixtures. Do not do without nail polish remover; acetone work faster, but worse affect the nails. By the way, you can file and make-up nails, if it is more convenient for you to track the uniformity of the shape, however, after that, the varnish will still need to be removed and polished free edge of the nail. The base for lacquer not only improves its durability, but also helps protect nails from pigmentation (some dark and red lacquers make them yellow), and drying saves time and nerves. The base is the most reasonable to choose the same brand as the varnish, with a simpler drying (although they may be incompatible with varnish, but this can only be tested in practice).
Staining technique
Even with the simplest monochromatic coloring sometimes difficulties arise, but they can also be avoided. It is not necessary to polish the nails before painting: neither the base nor the lacquer normally lie on a very smooth nail plate. Even right before applying the base you need to wipe the nails with nail polish remover to degrease them. The most understandable painting technique is shown in this diagram. In a nutshell, you should start coloring not at the cuticle itself, but one or two millimeters from it, so that later you can draw a smooth arc. If you still screw up, you can dip a thin brush in nail polish remover and remove the excess.
What gadgets to try
For unobtrusive nail art there is a lot of devices, and with today's fashion for self-expression you can try anything on the nails (at least wearing fur). On stands with varnishes come across dotters, which allow you to put the same points. Any rhinestones, thin gold foil or pearls keep well on a simple transparent varnish, you can find them in stores for art such as the Leonardo chain or local shops for artists. The most familiar household items can be useful: Reddit users recommend, for example, ordinary mesh washcloths or cloths for stencils, and textural accents are suggested to be made with crumpled paper.
How to prolong the effect of the procedure
The skin of the hands looks bad when it lacks moisture, so the main task after manicure is to drink enough water and use hand cream and cuticle oil daily if there is enough discipline. The latter sell not only in the form of bubbles as from under a varnish, but also in convenient tubes with a brush, which can be used even in the car, even in the office. There are special scrubs for hands, usually they contain a large amount of oils and not too coarse: this is how it turns out to nourish the skin at the same time and not overdo it with exfoliation. With his help, you can quickly tidy up the skin of the elbows, which usually suffers more from dryness.
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