FINGERS

Colourful Claws: Essie Nail Varnish

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What a difference healthy nails make. Nail varnish, once relegated to be reviewed on my toes, because my fingernails were so, so manky, is now one of my favourite things in life.

Essie probably won’t thank me for posting a picture of a less-than perfect finish, but sistuhs: this is day four. Day. Four.

Here’s what my nails went through in four days:
> Horseriding
> Dishwashing x3/day, without gloves
> 3 showers
> Lots of keyboard work {I had a big gig in the last week} which I am only realising as I am now typing, does indeed have an effect

That’s high stress stuff! And yet: four days! And only a wee bit of chippage! I don’t know, I’m sure other people do better, simply because they are better at applying it, but me, I am dead impressed.

{What’s she talkin’ ’bout, horseriding? The gloves play utter havoc upon a manicure, of course.}

Clockwise from left: Beach Bum Blue, Smokin’ Hot, No Place like Chrome, and Really Red. I also got the very classic neutral, Ballet Slippers, and my abso fave, Nothing Else Metals, a lavender-y metallic wee bottle of gorgeousness.

I am going to remove this now {*sob*} and do up all the nails in Ballet Slipper, methinks. I’ve cut my splitty nail all the way down, which is why it’s covered up. But thanks to — I know, I know, it’s all I talk about — Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Nail Strengthener, I have faith that it will grow back stronger than ever before. Because I wouldn’t even be bothering to paint my manky nails {not so manky now!} without its amazing benefits.

***

€9.99/£8.50/$8.00

Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Update: Magic Isn’t Magic

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But results can be magical.

‘Kay, here’s the thing: even though I’ve got the bottles of Nail Strengthener and Nourishing Oil right there, on my desk, to the left of my computer, I got a little lazy with my Dr Lewinn regimen.

Frankly, once you pile them on, the layers of Strengthener start to look pretty cruddy. I’m also having another healing crisis on my right hand: the cuticles look like I’ve got some sort rare skin disease that I contracted in the depths of the primeval forest.

So, counter-intuitively, I stop using the product. I know! Where is the sense in that?

See the thing is, magic isn’t magic. You can’t just wave a wand — or a brush — and say a magic word {me, I’d be partial to avada kedavra for my loathsome cuticles} and then it all goes away. Sad to say, this is news to me.

Only joking. Sort of. My fingernails need to be tended, and they are so terribly manky that I need to keep this up, or keep them cut down to the very nub.

But even though magic isn’t magic, the results I’ve gotten from this regimen are magical. Once I started over, the whites on the tips of my nails got brighter and cleaner, they were once again strong enough to file, and even though it’s going to take as much time as it takes, that nail that split is slowly growing out — but with a difference. It’s growing out with the support of the Strengthener.

This is a life long project, if you will. I spend a lot of time contemplating my fingers, as I sit here, hands at rest on the keyboard, wondering what I’m going to write next. If nothing else, I can’t bear them to be all gross and splitty and peeling, for my own peace of mind. And I really cannot wait to paint them up nice — so I won’t! Grotty cuticles notwithstanding!

My bank holiday project will be to give myself an amazing manicure.

I know, my life, it is much excite.

***

Ha ha ha – google Dr Lewinn’s Nail, and my fingers are the top images! I’m faaaaamous!

Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Update: Lost Track of Where I Am At

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Well, I know I haven’t been bathing my cuticles, so hang on a sec, I’ll take a moment to do that now —

Hey, what is the point of cuticles?!? I’m going to go a’Googlin, wait —

In human anatomy, cuticles or eponychia are the small folds of thickened skin at the base of each of the nails. Their purpose is to protect the area between the skin and the nail from infection.

Thanks, Wise Geek! Ooh, there are answers for everything over there —

Sorry, went on a bit of a wander. So, I lost track of what week it was in my Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Nail Strengthener treatment, overcome with ennui, maybe, because all I had to do was check the blog. Duh. I remember removing it, and leaving the nails, and then going Whoops! Gotta put some more on! and then doing that.

The problem is, my troublesome left ring fingernail is at it again. It is seriously split, so much so that I had to trim it waaaay down. And then file the others down to suit. This is too bad, because my right hand nails were looking so spectacular, I was about to polish them. But on the upside: my nails were actually strong enough to file!

Drat! So now I am chasing the cart with the horse, and layering on the Renunail, especially in that splitty fingernail, because it’s all I can do, isn’t it? I mean, the nail has to grow out of its split, right?

Here’s Auld Schplitty herself:

You can see that, yeah? Want to borrow my specs?

Right. So, I’ve anointed my cuticles in the Nourishing Oil, because it really does make a difference, and applying more strengthener, and hoping for the best…

Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Update: A Bit of Perspective

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I am in the middle of the third week of Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Nail Strengthener application. This is the fifth week of the whole process. I was only admiring my nails, my historically manky nails, earlier yesterday, thinking about how I was going to post another picture of their new and improved-ness.

They are not only whiter, and less ridge-y, but also stronger. I have been growing them without thinking twice. Until last night, when I removed my left riding glove and realised that my ring fingernail felt funny.

It had split all the way down the center.

Argh! Okay, so, in all the admiration yesterday, I had forgotten to apply the strengthener. Was that what happened? Or had I tempted the fates by letting the nail grow and grow? The riding gloves don’t help matters in any respect, so I am guessing that the confluence of elements — gloves tugging on too-long nail, too-long nail that had not been coated with supernatural strength — resulted in the split.

Dammit. Ah, well, time to file the nails down, and to keep strengthening.

Look, they are not even that long! I bet it is an aging thing…

Well, I am learning the limitations of the product as it conjuncts with the limitations of my own raw material. Still! The improvement is amazeballs.

Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Update: Uh. Wow!

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The story thus far: I treated my nails for one week with Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Nail Strengthener, and also applied ‘his’ Nourishing Oil to my cuticles.

I took the layers of Strengthener off when the week was up, and gave the nails a rest, while faithfully keeping up with the Nourishing Oil.

I reapplied the Strengthener for another week, and removed it yesterday.

Now, if you are the type of person who starts a thing, a thing like this that is supposed to work miracles, and then the miracles are not happening in what you consider to be ‘miracle time’ which would be IMMEDIATELY and so you are like, Feck this, this is not a miracle and then you stop the thing — then you are me.

I complained and complained about my manky nails, and I tried things now and again to unmank-ify them, and gave up. Maybe it’s not all my fault — maybe the products weren’t very effective! The thing is: Dr Lewinn gave me, by the middle of the first week, an indication that this stuff might work. Since I began to have faith in the process, I was inspired to keep it up. And so, as we enter week four of the six week treatment… Continue reading →

The Proof is in the Pudding: Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Update

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There was that, on the left; there is now this, on the right.

In other idioms, a picture is a worth a thousand words.

I’ve given the nails a break from the Nail Strengthener for a week and a half now. I’ll begin that again on Saturday. I am loving the Nourishing Oil no end, and it is well worth living through the unattractive healing crisis in order to achieve such stunningly improved cuticles.

And if anyone else is curious, here’s the meaning of that colloquial, yet antiquated phrase.

Will continue to take it handy! { … }

End of Week One: Dr Lewinn’s Renunail

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It is with great relief and disproportionate joy that I removed my first week’s worth of the Dr Lewinn Renunail Nail Strengthener treatment. Not that it has been bad, not by any means! It’s merely that in the last two days, my nails, which need no help in the looking-manky department, have really started looking crusty.

Now, they are clean and clear, and ready to rest. I’ve cut them all down to the bare minimum length, and will continue to bathe them in Renunail Nourishing Oil.

Actually, I have been lazy about the oil — and so if this programme doesn’t work, I can’t exactly blame the product, can I?!?

My cuticles are still peeling like bananas in a monkey cartoon. Actually, I think they are hangnails? Is that really a term, or did my mum make that up?

So: One week off, back to the nail strengthener for another week, one other week off, and the third and final week. I will have perfect fingernails by the end of June!

Manky Nails, Your Days are Numbered!

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So, last Friday I had a friend’s wedding {OMG she looked gorgeous — like, magazine-bride stunning} and I thought about getting a manicure, and then I thought, Why bother, your nails are so manky. And I know that my nails are manky because I don’t take care of them, but I swear, they are so crap — they have started splitting down the middle! WTF?!? — that it seems like I should just keep them short, since they are so nasty and brutish.

Then, after the wedding, I attended a fabulous ladies lunch in aid of The Seachange Foundation, and the lovely lunching lady on my left had the most amazing natural nails I have ever seen in my life. She was talking about how her nails had been manky, too, but she uses this treatment stuff and it is amazing, and how she had to have her sister buy it up for her because it wasn’t available in Ireland, but now it was, and I gasped and asked, ‘Is it that Dr Lewinn’s stuff?’

And it was.

I’d heard of this stuff, and in fact, had put in a request to try and test some last week. It arrived yesterday, and you can’t help but feel that the stars just fall into glorious alignment every now and then.

I am determined! I am going to do this! I’ve seen how good the Dr Lewinn’s Renunail Nail Strengthener is, in real life  — the evidence of its efficacy was right there at the tips of that lady’s fingers.

How it works is:
> You apply two coats on the first day, then a coat a day for the next five, and then remove it on the seventh day.
> Then you rest for 1-2 weeks.
> Then you do it twice more.

In the 1-2 week rest period, you use the Nourishing Oil, which I checked out really quickly yesterday, and it is oily, and hopefully nourishing.

Okay: I just applied my first coat. It’s very thick, and it is milky in appearance. It feels really cold on application, which is weird; it dries clear. I was curious as to why it works, and didn’t really find much info, except that the Strengthener has diamonds and pearls in it? I will say, though, that the internet contains predominantly glowing reviews, and I hope to have proof of that myself in six weeks.

Here’s a picture of my Manky Nails, in all of their shock and horror. I must say, they are looking nice and shiny with my duly applied two coats, and I am preparing to bathe them in the nourishing oil. The middle finger one is so short because that is the one that has started splitting. Only the one! That is weird, right? Although, I absolutely do not want anymore of my nails to start doing the same.

I know I have said, in the past, that I was going to mind my manicure, and didn’t, but this time is for real! I am going to have healthy, strong nails!

Nail Strengthener, 30mls: €31/£21; Nourishing Oil, 14mls: €15/£11
Irish prices are approximate; Debenhams are having a discount deal, which may just be online, I’m not sure. Go check it out on debenhams.ie.