It’s funny how up to a year ago, I disliked having my nails painted. I did. I’m exceedingly clumsy, and Murphy’s Law springs into action every time I have my nails painted, whether it’s by a nail technician or myself. Fifteen minutes within leaving the salon, and what do you know, my first chip! I’m pedantic about having chip-free nails, so once I see that chip, I won’t be able to rest until I either fix it up, or remove nail polish from all of my nails altogether.

Now, well, I think it’s pretty evident on the blog that I highly enjoy painting my nails now. In fact, I look forward to Friday evenings when I can sit back, relax and paint my nails for the weekend. So, what changed?

I’ve come to learn that the products you use to take care of your nails and create manicures are oh-so-important. I didn’t used to think it was necessary to have a good base coat and top coat. Gah, anything would do, right? It says right there on the bottle, BASE COAT. TOP COAT. Isn’t that good enough? Not really, and after trying bottles and bottles of base coats and top coats, I’ve finally discovered the ones that make my manicures work.

It’s imperative that the nails are properly buffed, cuticles tidied (erm, okay I admit, I’m quite lazy with this one) and nails filed before slapping the paint on. Here’s what I use for my nail-painting pleasure:

• Cuticle scissors
• Metal cuticle stick thingy
• You’ve Got Nail glass nail file
• Base Coat: Orly Bonder Rubberized Basecoat or OPI Natural Nail Base Coat
• Top Coat: Seche Vite Dry Fast Top Coat
• Cuticle oil and hand cream
• Sally Hansen acetone nail polish remover
• Face mask

I love the Seche Vite. It’s because of this gem that I now enjoy painting my nails. LeGeeque treated me to a manicure at OPI David Jones last year, and true enough, 10 minutes after we left David Jones, bam! Chipped my nail. In fact, one of her nails was chipped too. She was incredibly nonchalant about it, telling me not to worry, it will fix itself back. To my utter disbelief, 30 minutes later, the chip was almost gone. There was still a very fine crack, but 90% of the chip had disappeared. Say WHAT?!

As for the glass nail file, it’s such a pity that the YGN shop has closed down, because it’s really good to use. Emery boards are like fingernails on chalkboard now compared to glass files. I highly recommend using glass files if you like filing your nails as they are kinder to your nails and they last a very long time. Manicare does good glass files too, if you would like to check them out.

I decanted my nail polish remover into a pump bottle I purchased from Daiso. It’s a lot more convenient to place a facial cotton pad over the pump and press the right amount of remover you need rather than pour it out of the bottle. If you’ve not tried this before, do give it a go. Most if not all nail salons use pump bottles like this to dispense polish remover.

Okay, so what’s that face mask about? I don’t normally use that when I’m just painting my nails for the weekend. However, when I’m swatching a few bottles of nail polish at one time for the blog, then it’s absolutely essential that I use a face mask to protect myself from the fumes. It can get very overwhelming at times, breathing in the nail polish and nail polish remover, so I always use a face mask for this.

There you go, some of the nail tools I use to create my manicures. I’m still learning how to do them properly, especially when the brush goes near the cuticles (at the moment, I’m still doing a sloppy job). I’m still trying to get painting my right hand correctly, as my non-dominant hand gets pretty shaky at times.

It goes to show that with the right tools (and practice!), you really can enjoy a good, long-lasting manicure.

What about you? What’s in your nail arsenal? 😉