Go to the bathroom and use that scrub brush and the liquid soap and warm running water one more time. Get all of the oils off those nails, top, sides and underneath. Dry hands and nails well with a towel, pushing cuticles one more time. Check for missed cuticle as well as ragged edges and take care of these things now, as we are preparing to polish!
Take a gauze pad with just a little acetone to dampen it, and quickly go over the nails (don’t forget the side grooves and underside). Now you are ready for polish! If you are at a friends house, or you need to go somewhere within the
hour, make sure your keys are handy and everything else you need is as convenient as possible. Go to the potty (don’t laugh, that is how I mess my nails up most often, by far!).
Stay tuned to learn about Polish That Lasts!
When you are finished with whichever treatment you choose, take your lap towel and with your finger behind the towel, give those cuticles a push back and you will find a good deal of any remaining cuticle rubs off. Get the lotion out from under your nails and out of the groves on the side of your nails. At this point, go over the surface of your nails with your 4 way buffer, starting with the most abrasive side, using it lightly, and ending with the smoothest side, which you will use with a little more vigor. Make sure that you completely cover your whole nail surface, from cuticle to tip end and from side to side. When you are finished with this, your nails should be smooth and pink and glossy all over. This is important for your polish to look its best for the longest time, and it increases circulation in your nails which is good for their (and YOUR) overall health. With your cuticle nippers nip ONLY what is sticking up and begging to be clipped off. You may think that your cuticles are thick and ugly, but just wait until they are filled with scar tissue from live skin being cut off.
Whoever started the clipping all of the way around of cuticles was not thinking straight, in my opinion. Any thick cuticle that you have will slough off given a little time, and be replaced with newer, moister, more attractive skin. This goes for calluses from writing and working with gardening tools as well. A much better solution for these extremely rough and/or tough areas is to put your nail file to them, and file a little away each time, to speed up the sloughing process.
