6 ways to $ave your manicure

The following tips will help you to stretch your salon manicure or give yourself a professional quality manicure that will last.

1 Moisturize daily Nails that are dry and uneven are a sure way to doom your manicure from the start. Daily use of soaps and alcohol sanitizers remove dirt as well as moisture and causes rough cuticles and flaky, weak nails. Regularly moisturizing your cuticles and avoiding excessive use of alcohol sanitizers will keep your nails well moisturized.

2 Skip the soak While you may think that a soothing soak is a good part of the manicure process, soaking before a manicure causes your nails to absorb water and expand. Long after completing your manicure, when the water completely evaporates, the nail shrinks causing the polish to buckle and quickly flake off.

3 Splurge on a good base coat Although it’s often said that a good topcoat helps a manicure to last, a base coat is just as important, if not more so. The base coat serves dual purposes.
Firstly, it functions as a surface for the actual polish to attach itself to and it also acts as a protective barrier from the drying and staining effects of colored polishes.

4 Apply as little polish as possible It may be faster to do one or two thick coats of polish but it will certainly shorten the life of your manicure. Applying polish in thinner layers promotes even drying and will make it harder for small chips in the polish to spread and peel.

5 The best topcoat There are countless topcoats that claim to give the longest and shiniest finish to your manicure but the best way to maintain a chip free shine is to apply your topcoat every two to three days, giving your nails enough time to dry every time.

6 Repairs and going the extra mile If after all your attempts, your polish chips and you’re not ready (or willing) to have a new manicure, chipping nails can be disguised by applying glitter polish to the tips. The texture of a glitter polish will camouflage the ridge at the edge of chipped polish, and glitter polish resists chipping better than most other nail polishes.