Prepare yourself and your work area
Disinfect metal implements and your scrub brush. Follow the directions on the package for strength and timing of your solution. This shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to soak them, and give them a rinse off. Gather together everything you need while they are soaking. Find a place to do your nails where there is good light, and no chance of ruining anything with acetone. As it is so handy for lots of things around the house, it is also so damaging to furniture finishes!! A kitchen counter is great, if you have comfortable seating, or I use my glass dining room table (but must watch out for the upholstered chairs). Sometimes I spread my things on my bed and bedside table and have at it while socializing with my husband at night. The light there stinks, but the socialization is great—Thank God for men who don’t cringe at the smell of nail polish! Lay a towel under your work area nice and flat, and have one in your lap. A hand towel (not a fingertip towel) is the perfect size. If you keep one for your nails, you can get polish on it, nail glue, whatever, and it just doesn’t matter. Just wash it every once in awhile—it will get dirty. Take off all hand and wrist jewelry. Scrub hands and under fingernails vigorously with the nail brush. Get some circulation going there!
Lighting is IMPORTANT, most especially when you are first learning to do your nails. In fact, it doesn’t hurt ever to take a good look at your “naked nails” under a magnifying glass or through some weak drugstore reading glasses. A lamp with an adjustable neck is great for focusing right on your subject. If you happen to be a crafter or a sewer, you might have one of those full spectrum task lights. This is your very best choice (and a great thing for your Christmas list!).
Tips and Tidbits
I strongly suggest that you keep as many of your supplies together as you can, in a basket or plastic box of some sort. I keep my things in a picnic basket that is lined with cloth and has a place for 2 wine bottles. These hold my lotion and polish remover that need to be upright, and my brushes for doing art and artificial nails. The main part of the basket is filled with a goodly bit of junk, but all of my current favorite polish colors, and all other supplies. I only rarely have to risk messing up my newly done nails to go find something I’ve forgotten.
Before we get into the gory details of the spa manicure, I want to start by showing you a “map” of a fingernail, identifying its parts the way I will refer to them in this blog. I am not going to bother you with “proper” terminology, because those words are useless in real life. If you start talking about eponychia, parionychia and hyponychia, your friends will run, and no one but a doctor and a few educated nail techs will know what you are talking about.
