NeoStrata Nail Conditioning Solution: Exit 9, Represent!

A very Jesse Pinkmanesque expostulation greeted a recent discovery.

So here I was, at the computer, doing my usual multi-tasking, much of which actually involves procrastination, and I decided that once again my nails were not going to de-mankify themselves, so I reached for my sample of NeoStrata Nail Conditioning Solution.
NEOSTRATA NAIL CONDITIONING 1

Meant for nails and cuticles, it is advised to use this twice a day, on brittle and dry nails. Despite its location right there in front of me, I haven’t been using any of the nail products I’ve got on tap, and because I know myself, I reckoned that if I did two coats, it was the same as using it twice a day? Right?!?

And then for some reason — I think it involved trying to avoid doing something, like transcribing a taped interview — I did a third coat, and because the bottle was being turned from the dipping in and out {OMG this is never going to get interesting, I know it}, I caught sight of the mousetype on the back —
NEOSTRATA NAIL CONDITIONING 2
— and I went ‘PRINCETON, YEAH!’

Oh, man. Because I am from near there. And it was, like, unexpected and all that.

Soz. Carry on.

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NeoStrata Nail Conditioning Solution: €10.50/£19.99/$13.50. Hoping that this will help auld schplitty!

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Lovely and Long Lasting: AVON Nailwear Pro+

Here’s Naked Truth from Avon Nailwear Pro+:

V purty. Once again, the World Famous Supermodel Thumbnail™ is called to duty, and what a spectacular job she does, eh, ladies and gents? {Still working on growing back all the nails I willingly pared back to take the pressure off of Auld Schplitty.}

This made it through one night’s horseriding lesson, and its attendant gloves!

I am still loving the neutrals. They are so elegant. And of course, lighter colours wear better, too.

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€8. Available from your local Avon representative; ring 01870 6540 or visit www.avon.ie to find one near you.

This is the Only Way It is Okay to Fake It

Hey! It looks as if I have had a French Manicure! Except, it is not!

As ever, ignore my poor application method, the backbone of which system is: just get it over with.

Why this is so exciting:

> My nails have never, ever been this healthy.
> Since they are so healthy, the white parts are really clean and, er, white.
> Because the white parts are so white, when I brushed on Ballet Slipper by Essie, a magical thing happened.
> Magical thing: one coat of polish/varnish, and it looked like I got a French manicure!

Yeah, well, so?
> So! If I don’t have the patience to do even one coat of colour for a manicure, forget doing all the malarkey required for a French one.

Why are they called French manicures? Nobody knows! Big disputes! Do they have anything to do with France at all, or did some American dude called Jeff Pink make them up in the 70s — or was it Max Factor {an actual man, not just a name brand} in the 30s? All that conjecture is via here, there’s links if you are interested.

I’m not. I want nothing more than to gaze upon the photo of my amazing nails. I have since pared them all down to match Auld Schplitty and am confident that they will soon be ready for another foray into the now satisfying world of fingernail painting. There’s this bottle of AVON Nailwear Pro+ in Tweed that I am gasping to try…

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Colourful Claws: Essie Nail Varnish

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.

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€9.99/£8.50/$8.00

Colourful Claws: The Wild, as Seen in the Wild

Sparrrrrrkllllly!

I am so delighted with the health of my nails, thanks to Dr Lewinn’s Nail Strengthener and despite Auld Schplitty. They have never looked better, and perhaps, I will now learn enough patience so that I don’t do such a sloppy job as regards the application of  nail varnish.

I like this LA Splash glitter nail lacquer. It feels very sturdy on the nails, but it certainly does not look that way! It is totally disco, in the best possible sense.

I so want this in black.

I must say, though, as dreading the removal of this — when I was taking off the other colours, this remained disturbingly unmoved by my present nail polish remover. We’ll see how we get on…

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LA Splash Nail Lacquer is €5.99, and available online only: http://www.creativestudio.ie.

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

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.

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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

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

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!

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

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! { … }