I thought I would share with you my recovery process. Much of this is similar to my everyday, every week nail care routine, however I thought it would be nice to do this post to help me get back into blogging, and hopefully provide you with just a little bit of insight.
This is what my nails looked like three days ago...
Pitiful, I know! Misshapen, dry, rough, gross cuticles. Absolutely shameful! But I fixed them and here's how...
Immediate Treatment
I started off with a good filing, to get them back to a more reasonable shape as well as get rid of splits that were occurring.
I then gave my hands in a nice 10 minute soak in a warm bath using a Chaotic Glitz Mani Fizz. If you don't have any mani fizzes, checkout my recipe for DIY Mani Fizz.
After soaking, while my fingers were still moist I used a cuticle pusher and gently pushed my cuticles back.
Because my cuticles were in such bad shape, I used a cuticle softener and a cuticle trimmer along with a pair of nail clippers to gently remove the dead skin. I do not recommend everyone do this, especially if your skin is fragile. I, however, was desperate and felt my fingers couldn't get much worse, so I went ahead and did it anyways.
Daily Moisturizing
After my immediate treatment and for the next few days, I regularly moisturized with cuticle oil and lotion. I applied cuticle oil approximately every 15-30 minutes, not rubbing it in but allowing my skin to absorb it at its own pace. I primarily used my Flowered Cuticle Oil from Chaotic Glitz, though I did occasionally just grab whatever cuticle oil was nearby.
I also applied lotion approximately once every 30 minutes to an hour. I'm currently using Jergens Ultra Healing lotion.
Once daily I applied an ample amount of cuticle oil, lotion and wore my lotion gloves. I would leave them on for about 30 minutes. This allowed my hands to absorb the oil and lotion on its own. I did this at bedtime as well but used cuticle crème instead of oil, and wore the gloves overnight.
Final Treatment
By day three, my nails were looking much better but I still had significant ridges and some dead cuticle skin that was irritating me. So, I used a buffer and buffed down the ridges.
I also went through the process of trimming my cuticle once more.
After three days of hardcore moisturizing and a bit of work I am finally able to show my fingers off with pride.
Even though I love nail art, I feel nail care and maintenance are far more important than wearing pretty polish, or creating a fancy design. I typically spend more time maintaining my nails than I do painting them. It feels so nice to have them back to the way they should be and I can't wait to paint them and show them off.
Over this next week, I'll be sharing some swatches of polishes I purchased before my trip, and with any luck I'll have some new nail art to share too. Thank you so much for stopping by, see you next time.
Your Fellow Plebe,
