{such a} My Perfect Mani

I posted my Perfect Mani on the Champagne Tuesday Girls blog a few weeks ago, but I thought I'd share the love with you too.

Anyone who knows me knows that I'm fanatical about my nails, especially while on the go. I touch them up at my desk, I fix chips in the car...any time my nails need attention, I'm on it! Sundays however, are different. Every Sunday night I park myself at the table in the living room and accompanied by my favorite suburban dames, take the time to really "do" my nails. All of my tips and techniques come from fashion mags, observation at nail salons and pure trial and error. I can't guarantee that every single step will work flawlessly the first time, but you should definitely try this at home, and enjoy!


Monika's Perfect Mani
1. Remove nailpolish (self-explanatory)
2. Shape nails with a medium-grit file. The best ones I've seen are the blue files available at any CVS, Walgreens. Decide if you want to do a round tip or a square. To determine what works best for you, look at the shape of your hands. NOTE: File in one direction! If you go in different directions, you'll wind up with little nail bits on the tips.
3. Use a buffer block to smooth out any splits in your nails or any weird chips in the surface of your nail.
4. Grab the olive oil out of your kitchen cabinet and pour a little into a small dish. Take a small paint brush and swipe the olive oil over your cuticles. You can brush all the way up the side of your nail if you want extra moisturizing. Let this soak into your cuticles for a couple minutes.
5. Take an orange stick and gentle easy cuticles back. Don't push too hard that you cause yourself pain.
6. Go to the kitchen sink and wash your hands. Wash them thoroughly...don't leave any dust or oil on the nail itself.

Here's the point where you start the actual manicure. Line up your polish bottles on the table and make sure you have the lids loosened so that you don't mess up your mani. Each coat is done one after another...don't wait between. Think of your polish as doublesided tape...the bottom coat adheres to the next coat, etc. Don't do thick gloppy coats either...a simple thin coat is sufficient. Finally, don't worry about color not looking bright. You'll need to do two coats of polish. If you go outside the lines, again, no worries. The color will either come off after your polish is dry and you wash your hands, or you can use polish remover.

You'll need the following:
-Chip Skip
-Nail Envy
-Polish
-Top Coat


7. Start with a coat of Chip Skip or something like it to keep polish chips to a minimum.
8. Immediately after the Chip Skip, use a coat of nail strengthener like Nail Envy or one of the Sally Hanson Hard as Nails products to encourage nail growth.
9. On to the color! Pick whatever color you like. Note that darker colors will be a bit tougher to paint on because they can look streaky after the first coat. You'll do two coats, one right after the other. Start with one swipe of polish up the middle of the nail, pushing down on the nailbrush gently. You'll get a nice stripe of color. Then, angle the brush slightly and paint each remaining side. You don't need to go all the way to the side. It's a visual trick - most manicurists don't actually paint all the way to the skin. They leave a little space on the sides, which makes your nail look longer and thinner. The bonus is that this helps keep painting outside the lines to a minimum, so keep this tip in mind!
10. Once you've done your two coats, take your top coat and do a thin layer on all your nails.

You're done! I like to let my nails dry for a full hour to make sure they don't get nicked or dented. Any questions? If so, leave them in the comments.

{Such A} Redkat Review: Sally Hansen Color Quick Nail Pen

I'm very particular about my nails. At any given moment, I have a bottle of nailpolish sitting on my desk, one in my laptop bag and yet another in the glove compartment in my car. I have been known to paint my nails after getting in my car, fastening my seatbelt and starting it, just so that they can dry on the way to the office. I'm sure I've amused many a driver as I've gone down the expressway, hanging one hand, and then the other out the window to speed the dry time. My motto is, no chipped nails!

Flipping through an issue of Glamour one evening, I was intrigued to see an ad for Sally Hansen's Color Quick Fast Dry Nail Color Pen. Having tried several of these so called quicky manicure pens in the past, I didn't have high hopes for this one, but finding myself with a set of chipped nails this past Friday morning, I decided to give Sally's Nail Color Pen a try. A quick stop at Walgreens and I was the proud owner of a Black Cherry# 13 Nail Color Pen. I eagerly drove to the office, grabbed a cup of coffee and settled in to my chair to put this pen to the test. Let's just say the product performed remarkably mediocre.


The positives:
1. The nail color does go on quickly.
2. I'm on day three of my quickie manicure, and my nails are mostly sans chips.
3. The polish itself didn't smell nearly as strong as my OPI polish, so it was easier to paint covertly at my desk.
4. The pen isn't messy as a whole, so no worries about wayward nailpolish spots on my desk or on my laptop.
5. I didn't wind up with a lot of color outside my nail bed, so no need for nailpolish remover touch ups.

The negatives:
1. The color is streaky. No one is going to look at my nails and assume that I got a professional manicure. I tried two coats and couldn't get all the streaks out.
2. The click and paint mechanism is wonky. I had to click repeatedly to get the color to flow into the pen, and when it did, it came out unevenly.
3. It's hard to paint with the brush, so you can't actually paint all the way to the cuticles. Considering that I want to elongate my nails with color since I've got small hands, this was a noticeable negative.
4. The brush on this pen is incredibly coarse, so it's impossible to get truly even application.

On the whole, Sally Hansen's Color Quick Pen is a great option for those times when you need to freshen up your nails on the run, but I wouldn't recommend it for anything more lasting than a few days. I'll hang on to my Black Cherry #13 for those "in case of emergency" moments, but keep "I'm Not Really A Waitress" for my at-home manicures.

Redkat Score:


2.5 Kats