How to make your home manicure last longer

Everyone knows when you have a manicure at a salon it lasts longer than when you do it yourself. The keys points to remember when doing a home manicure are;

Prepare the nail - do your cuticles to remove any dead skin around the cuticle, this helps the polish to adhere better.

File your nails into the desired shape and make sure there are no rough edges.

Wash your hands, and then apply a nail dehydrator, you can use nail polish remover to do this.

Apply a base coat, this is important as the polish will last longer. Make sure you run the brush along the top of your nail, capping, as this seals it in. Do this with each coat of polish.

Apply your first colour coat, take care with the first coat and if you get any on the cuticle area, you can clean it off with an orange stick or thin brush dipped in remover. Take care to get close to the cuticle area, ideally there should be a slight gap around the cuticle and down the sides.

Apply your second coat of colour polish, I let the first coat dry as there is less chance of mucking your nails up!

Finish with a good top coat making sure that you have covered all the colour polish. OPI make a good top coat and it is quite quick with drying. The top coat protects the colour coat and makes your polish last longer.

Leave it to harden at least half an hour.

Do not apply any hand lotion after washing your hands as it will leave a residue on the nail, the nail needs to be clean and dry.

There are now quite a lot of gel polishes that do not require a light to cure them, but you still need to follow the above process. The darker colours seem to chip easier, but by capping the free edge of the nail, it gives them some protection.

OPI have a new no light gel polish, Infinite Shine which they say you can get 10 days wear out off. You have to use the Infinite Shine base and top coat to ensure you get the wear. I did try it, but I found the colour polish was quite thick, I only bought on colour, so it is not really fair to review it on only one colour. It is very shiny, which is a bonus and it seemed to wear very well.

CND have Vinylux which does not require a base coat, so it is one step less. Again, you must use the Vinylux top caot with it. They say up to 7 days wear, and I can say that this is accurate.

Hope this helps if you are confident doing your own nails.