Saturday, April 14, 2012

How to clean up your manicure to make it look fantastic

Hiya! Today I've got a tutorial that I've had lots of questions about- how I make my nails look like they're "perfectly polished." Friends have told me that I must have incredibly steady hands to polish  my nails so neatly, and yet nothing could be farther from the truth!

Instead, I've got a pretty noticeable tremor. My hands shake most of the time, and there's not really anything I can do about it. This means when I paint my nails, I get polish on the skin surrounding my nails as well. This makes it look like my nails were painted by a distracted toddler!

Thankfully, I learned how to fix it from several blogs, and I'm going to share the technique with you. It's fast and easy, and gives me that fresh-from-the-salon look. Have a look:



See? You can do this too, and with a bit of practice it won't take you long at all! Here are the details you'll need:

Supplies:
Acetone or nail polish remover
A paintbrush of your choice

I use a brush that came with a cream eyeliner from Black Radiance. It's almost the same brush that came with my Wet n Wild cream eyeliner, which isn't surprising the same parent company owns both Black Radiance and Wet n Wild! My brush looks weird because I taped it to a length of wooden dowel to make it longer.

I like this brush because it's nice and firm, and the angled tip lets me get into spaces I can't quite reach with a square brush. Still, brush preference is a very personal thing, and you might not like this brush. Try out several to see what you prefer!

You don't need a special nail art brush for this, either. You can use any brush you like. I've gotten brushes from art supplies and from WalMart, and they all work equally well for this.

Unfortunately, brushes don't last forever. As you can see, the fibers of the older (silver) Wet n Wild brush are kind of splayed out and going every-which-way. This doesn't work well when I'm trying to clean up my nails. The newer Black Radiance (gold) brush is also thinner, but that hasn't made much difference in my cleanup.

Unfortunately, the fibers in the newer brush are starting to get a bit wonky as well. I think it's time for a new one. Still, I think the eyeliner cost a whopping $3, so I'm not breaking the bank whenever I need a new one!

I hope this helps you, and that you can get neat nails too! Leave me a comment if you find this helpful.

Have a great day!

Polishes were provided by the brand for consideration.
See my disclosure statement for more information.