Friends often ask me how my manicure lasts so long, and do I actually cook/clean/wash dishes? (For the record, yes, yes, yes! I actually love cooking.)
So how DO you make your manicure last longer?
Well… there are those all-important first steps: have clean, dry nails before starting your mani (even wiping quickly with a cotton pad soaked in alcohol can help polish adhere longer by removing nail oils), use a good quality base coat under your polish, allow a few minutes to dry between coats and apply 2 coats of polish… finish off with a top coat – I love a quick-dry top coat such as FNUG’s IGEL or China Glaze’s Fast Forward top coats. Wrap the free tip of your nail as you apply top coat (swipe it over the free edge).
So you have done all of the above. Now what?
Even the most careful among us will experience some tip wear after a few days. If you are not ready to let go of your mani, which was the case for me when I was wearing the beautiful Colors by Llarowe Cherry Bomb (see it here), you can extend your mani for a few more days!
How? Simply apply a gradient of your favourite glitter, preferably with a tinted base, over your tips!
How to apply a gradient?
“Dry-brush” the first coat of glitter: wipe the brush of the glitter polish inside the bottle, so you are left with more glitter, less base, and apply this over the tips. Let dry a few minutes.
Apply another coat of glitter polish over your tips, this time applying the glitter polish normally.
Let dry, apply top coat, and voila!
Here is the beautiful Shimmer Polish Karina, a perfect glitter to complement Cherry Bomb, applied as a gradient over my tips:
The best part? This barely takes a quarter of the time of a full manicure!
What do you think? Would you try this over a few-days-old mani?
~xo
maybe it’s just me, but glitter on my tips always seems to make my nails chip faster 🙁
You know what, that has happened to me before too. I think it depends on the glitter.