25 Tipps For Perfect Nails - Nail Care At Home

Our fingernails and toenails need a lot of attention to make you feel good and look good. In addition: they are extremely resentful. Abuse, too much paint shop or contact with aggressive chemicals, they react with splinters, breaking or discolouration.

If you want healthy, beautiful nails, you should consistently do them good and also do everything right when painting. Here are 25 practical tips and ideas to pamper your toenails and fingernails!

Protective function and creative potential

Even though we love to beautify it with paint, nature did not invent our nails as a painting ground. Its function is to protect the sensitive fingertips.

What breaks so much and splinters, is the nail plate. She lies on the soft nail bed. The cuticle covers the beginning of the nail plate and protects it from infection. However, it is itself very sensitive - cutting or rigorous removal, for example, it acknowledges that it is unsightly horny or inflamed.

Well-groomed nails: 25 tips for the manicure

But enough to the theory - we come to practice. Here are 25 simple tips for a successful manicure at home!

1. Use the right file

For brittle, splintering nails use a special file. Their grain and padding make filing particularly gentle. Metal files are unsuitable for fingernails. Its surface structure roughens the nail too much and creates high friction heat. Both cause the nail to splinter.

2. Maintain nail fold

Anyone who has cornified, cracked areas on the fingertips, should regularly massage nail cream in those places where nail sides and fingers meet (nail fold). This makes the skin softer and more elastic.

3. Soak cuticles

The cuticle may not be cut, but pushed back. This works best after showering, then the cuticle is softened. Otherwise, just keep your hands in lukewarm water for 5 minutes.

4. The right time to paint

Do not paint nails directly after showering or bathing - they will swell up with water. When drying, they contract again. The result: the paint is bursting.

5. Remove nail polish correctly

Press a cotton pad soaked in nail polish remover onto the varnish for approx. 8 seconds, then wipe it from the nail bed to the nail tip.

6. Prepare nails for the paint

Even if no paint has to go down, the following applies: Before painting, degrease the nails with nail polish remover or alcohol, otherwise the paint will not last.

7. Fill grooves

Longitudinal or transverse grooves in the nail are harmless but look ugly. Weak grooves can be removed with a polishing file, thicker ones filled with a nail filler.

8. Prime the nail plate

Always apply a base coat before the colour coat. It compensates for small bumps in the nail plate, improves the durability of the nail polish and prevents the nail plate from discolouring.

9. First, come the big ones

When nail polish always start with your thumb. Due to its large area, it has the longest dry season.

10. Banish acetone

Not only the paint remover but also the nail polish itself, you should make sure that it contains no acetone. This substance removes the nails massively fat and moisture.

11. Release glued fasteners

Keep the glued seals of nail polish bottles under running hot water, then let them open again easily. Even better: after each use, clean the thread of the vial with nail polish remover.

12. Leave time

The more time a nail polish has to dry through, the greater its durability. Basically: Give him at least 10 minutes. 'Express nail polishes' will dry faster, but last no longer than two days.

13. Quick-drying by spray

Do not dry off painted nails, the heat keeps the paint soft. Special dry sprays accelerate the drying of the top layer of varnish. They also contain silicones that act as a shine enhancer.

14. Shorten nails properly

Nails should never be cut with scissors. That brings them to splintering and tearing. Shorten it with a coarser file.

15. Harden soft nails

Nail hardener makes the nail plate more resistant to splintering. But this makes sense only in the front part of the nail, the rear part should remain elastic - here renounce the hardener.

16. Visually narrow nails

Wide nails appear narrower if you do not completely paint the nail, but each leaves a very narrow strip on the side free.

17. Use colours correctly

Pastel shades and light nude tones make nails bigger and darker colours smaller. Light tones forgive easier blemishes when painting and even the first peel off is not so strong.

18. Do not file corners

File toenails straight. Deeply polished corners can cause the nail to grow in.

19. The right technique when filing

Do not move the file back and forth, this will result in a frayed nail edge. Always work in one direction only: from the corner to the middle.

20. Protect nails when cleaning

Protect your fingernails when cleaning or rinsing with rubber gloves from aggressive cleaning agents and swelling by water. Painted nails stay well protected longer.

21. Smooth the file edge

Anyone who has to contend with brittle nails should, after filing, work the vertical edge of the nail tip with a polishing file until the nail edge feels completely smooth.

22. Apply the paint properly

In three strokes from the centre to the sides. Allow the first layer to dry for at least one hour, then apply the second layer. If you can not wait, you risk forming tiny bubbles in the upper layer of paint.

23. Maintaining the cuticle

Cuticles that tend to rupture keep a regular nail oil massage supple and healthy.

24. End the yellow

Once the nails are discoloured (for example, by tannins or variegated nail polish), it helps to bathe the fingertips in a mixture of warm water and citric acid. In the blink of an eye, special whitening lacquers set off the yellowish tinge with a purple glow.

25. Nail Bath

A bath of olive or jojoba oil cares for and protects the nails and makes them soft and supple. For brittle nails use lemon peel oil as a bath additive.

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