Forgetting to Exfoliate Your Cuticles

You would be forgiven for never considering cuticle care when you are painting your nails ahead of a night out with friends or a date night with your significant other. Still, as with many other things in life, preparation beforehand makes the process much easier later on.

Both cuticle removers and cuticle oils are essential when you want to preserve the strength and smooth even surface of both your toenails and fingernails. With this in mind, utilizing both and crucially, understanding the difference between the two is vital.

Using cuticle remover will remove any trace of the cuticle on the nail plate itself and will also serve to rid each nail of any lurking dead skin cells. Using cuticle oil to moisturize your nails and the skin on your fingers after you have freshly painted them and as part of your morning routine will also keep your nails looking good.

Absent Mindedly Picking Your Nails

Once a professional or home manicure has been left unmaintained on the nails for a couple of weeks or so, the varnish or polish begins to peel, making for an unsightly mess on both hands. However, it would be best if you did everything you could to resist the temptation to pick and peel the small pieces of product away from your nail and instead book an appointment with a professional nail technician to ensure the product is removed safely and in a controlled setting.

Damaging the surface of your nails will make it much harder for a technician to accurately and neatly apply acrylics or even gel nail varnish the next time you treat yourself to a manicure. The bottom line with your nails is that you should imagine them as an extension of your outfit rather than simply manual tools on the end of your fingers.

Applying Polish Too-Quickly

When attending a professional nail appointment, you will categorically never witness a nail tech applying thick and gloopy layers to your nails, preferring (every time) to use light and smooth layers to build the color and tone.

Even if you adore the thickness and richness of layers of color, nail technicians worth their salt would never triple layer polish and instead apply a base coat, followed by one or two thin layers of color, followed finally by a topcoat.

Not Applying a Base Coat

Another simple yet exceedingly common mistake to avoid when dedicated to growing stronger and healthier nails is to never apply any nail varnish directly onto the nail itself. Instead, taking just a couple of minutes to carefully apply a clear base coat first can help protect your nails and keep them strong and healthy.

In addition, you should also spend time perusing the official website of the leading supplier of professional tools and equipment for nail technicians, igelbeauty.com, where there is a huge selection of base coats to suit all types of nails and nail extensions.

Should you want to become an amateur nail technician yourself at home and would like to experiment with giving yourself a manicure, as well as your friends and family members, then it is vital to invest in the right tools for the trade, else you once again risk damage, allergy and infection.

For home manicures and nail care, the following items form the comprehensive list of tools and equipment you will need:

• Manicure Scissors
• Nail Files
• Nail Buffers
• Cuticle Clippers
• Base and Top Coat Polishes
• Nail Varnish
• Acetone Polish Remover
• LED Curing Lamp 
• Cuticle Pusher
• Nail Brush 

Being Too Rough with Your Nail File

Not only can nail files, especially those bought in bulk for the cheapest price possible, damage the edges of your nails (as well as, in some cases, the cuticles), when filing your nails, it is important not to be too rough.

Unlike your toenails, which should be trimmed and then filed straight across and can be done so in one clear motion, your fingernails are rounded in a natural curved shape, so filing them requires more finesse.

Gently and slowly file one edge to the top of the nail, and when you have sufficiently neatened and smoothed the edge, apply the same motion to the opposite side, creating a natural curve to the nail.

Another pertinent point on proper nail care is that even if you are desperate to remove the acrylic manicure you had a few weeks ago and it is still very much stuck to your fingernails, you should never use pure acetone to remove them.

It is far better for your nails and skin to choose an acetone-free remover formula, which will be gentler and kinder, although just as effective.

Insufficiently Moisturizing Your Hands

Finally, many people fail to strike a balance between providing enough moisture to the tips of the fingers and nails and piling on too much lotion to result in a lifting of nail varnish or even expensive gel or acrylic manicures.

Hydration is unequivocally the most essential element of looking after not only your nails and hair but also your skin as well as your internal organs, but when it comes to moisturizer, make sure there is never an excess of cream left on the nail plate or cuticle area.

Even and regular moisturizing will help to improve the dryness and brittle nature of nails, as well as reduce the likelihood of splitting and tears, whether or not you paint your nails often.

With these mistakes to avoid, you can enjoy healthy and strong nails.