Make Your Manicure Last Longer

Oh yay!  I am so excited to share this tip with you that I recently discovered.  I absolutely love having well-manicured hands and toes.  I do it myself because I’m really detail oriented and if a manicurist doesn’t paint them perfectly then I get mad that I’m paying money for it (though I don’t typically say anything, I just stop going to that salon).  My nails are extremely porous and I work with my hands a lot, so my polish usually lasts 3-4 days max.  I find this frustrating.  While I like to have painted nails, I’m not a huge fan of actually painting them.

I was browsing through Bed, Bath and Beyond about a month ago and ran across a brush-on gel resin for nails.  I feel like I struck gold!  My nails are naturally very thin.  No supplement or vitamin that I’ve tried has been able to remedy this yet.  So, not only does my polish chip nearly immediately, my nails break easily.  In desperation I picked up a bottle of the brush-on gel resin and gave it a whirl.

ibd Brush-on Gel Resin

It comes with a brush similar to what is in most nail polish bottles.  I began by painting on 2 coats of gel, let it dry and then took a nail file and buffed it to a smooth finish.  Make sure that it’s completely dry before you start filing or it will get clumpy and ruin your nail fine.  I repeated this process 3 times.  Then I went over it with 2 coats of polish.  My nails look excellent and have been going strong for over a week now.

There are special acetone-based products you can buy at the drugstore when you decide you want to remove your gel.  Though it is not necessary to do this every time you want to polish your nails.  You can simply remove your polish with your typical nail polish remover and either add a new coat of gel to insure its integrity or just paint right over your old gel with your new color.

This makes all the difference in the world for the longevity of your manicure.  I recommend trying it, especially if you’re usually hard on manicures!

Lash Extase.

If you’re anything like I am then your make-up bag is littered with half-used tubes of mascara.  Some you use with one another, others not at all.  Fallen soldiers in the pursuit to find the best volumizing, lash lengthening miracle worker out there.  It’s a challenge to find the perfect one!

One thing that I’ve noticed is the style of brush used is key.  Some of the mascaras you buy have very widely spaced bristles.  I’ve found that this causes the application to become too heavy.  You wind up looking like you’ve gobbed on the mascara and your lashes end up clumped together.  Some have too many bristles.  In this instance you either end up with a very thin coat (it’s almost as though you have none on at all) or you have raccoon eyes from applying it so aggressively in an attempt to get more on your lashes.

I have blonde hair and in turn, blonde lashes.  So, a good mascara application is important so that I don’t look washed out.  I used to be a VERY loyal user of Cargo’s SupersEyes.  However, they made a fatal mistake…they changed their brush!  They switched to a brush with bristles that were too widely spaced.  Dear Cargo, if you’re wondering why sales fell off on this product it is because you tried to fix something that was not broken.

After months of agony and countless mascara purchases I have finally found a superb replacement to my Cargo companion.

Christian Dior has released a little beauty gem called Diorshow Extase.  No longer shall I mourn the loss of my old mascara.  This stuff is fantastic!  Not only does it have the appropriate bristle spacing, they went one step further and varied the length of the bristles.  Now your very short, newer lashes AND long, older lashes get an even coat of Dior’s well formulated black magic.  I dare say it’s the equivalent of false eyelashes in a tube!

If you are in search of a great mascara, give this one a whirl.  They have my ringing endorsement!

A Healthier Lacquer for Your Digits!

I discovered Zoya at an adorable local salon called The Denver Nail Lounge.  If you’re ever in town I would highly recommend you popping in for a relaxing manicure and delicious bubble tea!

My manicure was done with a sparkly orange color called Gabrielle.  It lasted for about a week without chipping (polish on my nails usually starts chipping around day 3).  Zoya was named the “longest lasting nail polish” by the likes of Women’s Health Magazine and Lucky Magazine. This polish has the added benefit of being a natural beauty product!  It is free of toluene, formaldehyde, DBP and camphor which are toxic, damaging ingredients in some other nail polish lines.  Choose from their arsenal of 300 unique ready-to-wear colors.

I’ve been increasingly conscious over the past couple of years regarding what health effects the beauty products I use have on my body.  I’ve switched everything out for their all-natural counterparts and feel great about eliminating another source of toxins from my daily routine.  I have since visited Zoya’s website and collected around 10 bottles of their most beautiful colors.

Zoya does something really unique for their online shoppers.  Instead of chancing the color not matching the picture on their website, you can order something called a “Color Spoon”.  A Color Spoon is a sample you can use to test the color against your skin tone.  They charge $0.50 per Color Spoon, you can order as many or as few as you want and they’re shipped to you for free.  Once you place an order for your Color Spoons, an email is sent to you with a coupon for the amount you spent on them and can then be put towards the purchase of the Zoya product of your choice!

Bravo Zoya for addressing our beauty, health and budget concerns in one fell swoop!