General Question

[mirre]

I may need to ask this in a different forum but I thought I''d start here.

I am going to be in a wedding on Dec. 15 and I''m hoping to not have to get my nails done and damage them. At first I was looking VERY forward to getting my nails done but they actually are looking pretty healthy. I guess it will mostly depend on how much they have grown out by then and how well they hold up during finals haha.

So here are my questions. There isn''t much growth but of what little there is is pretty dull and yellowish tinted (on the white parts). Do any of you ladies know any tricks to get them:

A) to grow faster? (right now I am putting a clear nail growth polish on them just started so don''t know how well it will work)
and
B) How to get them to where they look clean and pretty? Right now they look stained.

 

[Stephanie]

I would have the admin. move this to Hangout.. You may get more responses there. But for the nail issue, try getting a gentle buffiing board and buffing the ends of your nails and then put a strengthener on them (make sure the bottle says strengthener!) - not just clear polish. Also, increasing your calcium and protein intake can help increase the nail strength - or so I have heard. There are some products that say that nails will grow in x amount of time, but I have never tried one! Good luck with finals - I have them coming too!

 

[mirre]

Thanks Stephanie!

Good luck with your finals too!

 

[smiles]

coming from someone who used to be a perpetual horrible nail biter..
start with the simplist thing... drink lots of milk!!!!!!
also a clear polish is good but i would do like one week with and one without because your nails need to breathe and nail polish suffocates them but a good strengthening/growth polish can do wonder!!!
good luck!

 

[Tuesday]

I don''t know what it''s called, but I have a thing that looks like a long square tube with a flattened angle head, almost like a square pencil. It''s white, and it''s almost like a file but solid. You can use it to file down the ends of your nails but you can also use it to scrape out the underside of your nails to remove stains and make them a bit whiter. Unfortunately, I have no idea what you call it!

Someone else suggested a nail buffer. You can buy the four-sided ones where you start with a coarse file, then move to a finer file, then a buffer, and finally a polisher. Those work really, really well.

The last thing I would recommend is to keep a nail brush by your sink and make sure you scrub your nails (both top and underneath) every time you wash your hands. It helps keep them looking clean.

My secret trick is to keep a bottle of white nail polish and a bottle of very light translucent pink on hand. If you practice you can manage to run the white nail polish just over the whites of your nails to brighten them up (kind of like a french manicure) and then do the light pink over top of everything. It looks natural, but brightens everything up a bit.

 

[mirre]

Thanks for all of your help so far. I don''t know if they do it in any of the malls where you all are from but I have been suckered in (not once but twice) buying this little kit for your hands and nails. You know where they stop you while you''re walking by and buff out your nails on one hand and it feels like a massage! So I bought it... I''m getting much better about saying "No" to stuff like that though

So if I can find that stuff maybe I can make a habit of treating my hands and nails each night. It comes with lotion, a buffer, and cuticle oil. And I guess as for class, to keep from picking at my nails that I''m trying to grow I''ll put a couple coats of polish on and scrape that off instead. That''s what I used to do since I had to be messing with my nails but was trying to grow them out. It worked... For a little while!

 

[iwannaprettyone]

Brooke Shield swears by facial hair bleach to remove stains from nails....paint it on leave per instructions and scrub off. The other one is whitening denture cleaner. Good luck.

 

[mirre]

REALLY?!?! Wow!

So on the denture cleanser would you just soak your fingertips in the solution?

 

[iwannaprettyone]

google SOS nail care system...

 

[Delster]

I have the worst nails known to man. Seriously. I posted about it before. I can bend them over my fingertip with hardly any pressure.

I never had any success with any nail hardener that you paint on. They just chip off because my nails bend so easily. No use whatsoever. And I've tried lots of 'em. Only one thing has ever worked for me and it's this neem oil pen thingy. While I kept it up, my nails were ROCK HARD and grew really long! It was amazing!

Then I read in one of Paula Begoun's books that it isn't necessarily the product that works with these things, rather it's the action of massaging the product into the nails. So, in theory, massaging any product into your nails will work. Or just massaging your nails. Could you try training yourself to do that instead of nibbling? (I know, probably impossible!)

Now that I think of it, why did I ever stop using that pen?

ETA: There's a nail polish you can get over here that basically causes your nails to kind of fluoresce. In natural lights and normal office lighting etc it makes your nails a lovely pink glowy colour. Just really healthy and CLEAN. You can't go near anywhere with UV lights though or you'll frighten people with your glow-in-the-dark nails! It's called Goodbye Yellow nail varnish and is by Barbara Daly for Tesco - I found a blog post here

 

[Hudson_Hawk]

I believe lemon juice will also help whiten your nails though I can''t remember if it''s straight lemon juice or diluted with water. I used to use a product called NailTek that worked really well.

Good luck!

 

[mirre]

Delster that''s also something that those people in the mall kiosks told me about that stuff I bought... that the massaging of the buffer or whatever increased circulation or something like that.

I used to have a HORRIBLE habit of biting my nails... then it became a nervous habit. I have weined myself from biting but now I just pick at them.

It''s not fair, my mom has really long, strong nails! Everyone thought they were fake when we went to family''s for the holiday. I can''t grow nails to save my life! I told her I apparently did not get that gene.

 

[meresal]

I''m not sure if this is true... but I also have the flexible problem with my nails. The woman I went to in Dallas when I lived there, told me that Pre-natal vitamins will make your nails grow faster and stronger.

Has anyone else ever been told this?

 

[mirre]

Yes, I've heard that... But I think that it may be multi-vitamins in general. Either that or it oculd have something to do with the Folic Acid in the prenatal vitamins.


ETA: I guess that would be another benefit to me remembering to take my vitamins daily. I am so forgetful!