Since I filed my nails shorter I’ve started to miss the feeling of my own natural nails. Also at the moment I find maintaining the gel layover a little bit too time and energy consuming. That lead to a decision of starting this “Back to natural nails” project. I’m going to start by growing out my right hand nails first. While they grow I keep the left hand nails in swatch photo condition and covered with gel. I’m trying not to fill the left hand nails anymore either and just file the gel layover thinner as the nails grow. I might have to use soak off gel polish to cover the growth line when I’m swatching.
My right hand nails are almost gel free now. There’s a tiny bit of gel left on the index and thumb finger nails. Those parts will either grow out or peel off, time will tell. A bit over half the length of the nail bed is now grown out (hopefully) healthy and the other part is quite damaged by gel and the removal of the layover.
Of course it’s going to be annoying for me to have ultra nubbins on my right hand and normal nails on my left hand. The polish won’t match most of the time either. I’m usually very particular about both hands having the same length and shape nails. Now I just have to believe it’ll be worth the trouble tolerating the situation for a bit and hopefully have my own natural nails back growing nice and healthy soon enough.
I’m going to be using some of the products I’ve already used before and found them working great for me and I have also received some new products to test.
I also just ordered Kiss Bliss Pure Nail Oil Starter/Refill Kit from NailCareHQ.com. I’ve heard great things about this product so I can’t wait to try it on my own nails.
This is where I’m starting from:
As you can see, my nails are super short and not in a great condition. I’m trying to keep them as short as possible minimizing the risk of bad tears and breaks. One of the new products I’m trying is Duri Rejuvacote. I’ve read great reviews of this product and I’m pretty excited to try it. Though I’m not going to use it as the instructions recommend, as a base coat and a top coat. I don’t see a point in doing that. So I’ll use a couple of coats under my base coat, polish and top coat.
I also don’t believe there’s a base coat/treatment on this earth that will fix damaged nails. Once your nail is damaged it’ll remain so until the damaged part grows out. I’ll just hope this product, used in balance with others will help my nails grow stronger in the future. So I’m not expecting a miracle healing for my paper thin nails while using this product.
Since I’ve noticed that excessive use of nail strengtheners/hardeners will do me no good I will also use other treatments like Essie Nourish Me and Sally Hansen Nail Rehab base coat. I try to keep a good balance using different products. Most important product to try and use will be the Kiss Bliss Pure Nail Oil once my order arrives.
I also need to take care of my cuticles and hands so for that I’m going to rely on familiar products like LUSH Lemony Flutter and Charity Pot. For cuticle removal I like to use Sally Hansen Instant Cuticle Remover. It works great for me and I use it about once a week.
I’ll be using CND Solar Oil on my nails and cuticles until the previously mentioned Bliss Kiss Pure Nail Oil arrives.
Naturally there’s other products I use too but I’m not gonna start photographing and listing every single thing here right now. Those products will probably appear on future posts as the nail growing project moves along.
Another important thing is to always keep my nails polished to protect and give them some extra strength. First of all I will always keep my nails moisturized with nail oil. For my manicures I’ll be using 1-2 coats of Duri Rejuvacote/Essie Nourish Me/Sally Hansen Nail Rehab (switching between these three), then a coat of Glisten & Glow Stuck On Blu! base coat, 2-3 coats of nail polish and HK Girl top coat.
So this is the beginning of my “Back to natural nails” project. I’ll post regular updates with photos and info on how these products are working for me. This is a project that will take months instead of weeks and require a lot of patience so you might see some crying and whining about this on my social media sites ;) As well as nubbins swatches and possible broken nail disaster photos :P
I’ll leave you with a Dollish Polish teaser (since you can’t get this polish anymore). This is Lipstick Around Your Dipstick from Dolly Does Polish collection.
Cos them nubbins need some love and awesome nail polish too:
***Duri Rejuvacote, Sally Hansen Nail Rehab, Stuck On Blu! and HK Girl top coat were received for free. Other products mentioned on this post were purchased by me. I don’t benefit from clicking any of the links on this post.
