As you can tell from my multitude of
nail polish blog posts (
here,
here and
here), I’m a bit of a fanatic when it comes to my nails. But as much as I love slicking on that new shade, getting creative with nail art and testing out the latest trends, my nails need a break sometimes – a chance to go
au naturel, and time to breathe. This just so happens to be my nail polish-free week. Here are my best tips for getting my nails back to a healthy state after weeks of polish changes.
1. Remove polish for at least one week. After a month of applying nail polish twice a week (if not more — I’m finicky), my nails start to feel dry and sometimes even get brittle and split. All that polish, remover and filing takes its toll. So I give them a clean slate and apply only a nourishing base coat (try
Essie’s Feed Me) to get them back to strength.
2. Keep ‘em short. When not sporting any polish, I tend to keep my nails on the shorter side. If they are fragile, longer nails could split and damage more easily.
3. Natural doesn’t mean unruly. Just because I don’t have a pretty shade swept across my nails doesn’t mean I skip on cleaning up my cuticles – this is an essential step to healthy nails – filing them into the perfect shape, and making sure they’re free of hangnails or dry skin.
(more…)