Nails of the week - Natural Gel

Good morning! 

 

I always have people asking me if my nails are real and if so how I maintain them and so I thought that today I’d talk a little about that and show you what’s underneath the vibrant colours I usually wear. 

In answer to the aforementioned question, yes. My nails, lovelies, are 100% pure Keratin and are alllll mine. You may detect a hint of pride in that sentence, lol, and that is because, believe it or not, my nails take absolutely forever to grow! 

When I was a child I used to envy all the women with long nails and my dream was to be a secretary or a hairdresser because in my mind those were the jobs that came with the nails! Little sister could cut her nails and in a week they’d be back and long as ever but mine were just these tiny stubs that either kept breaking or were chewed down in an effort to express nervousness. 

I remember sitting on the floor crying after my dad had spent an afternoon glueing on those pink plastic fake nails because the thumb wouldn’t fit and they all had to come off. The nail kit that had initially been the most awesome gift ever became a motif for despair. 

With time I have come to realise that the best way to grow my nails out, in fact, is simply to ignore them most of the time. I file them once every two days so that I don’t have any torn edges and then let them be until they get to a length I am happy with. There is honestly no special treatment or product I use. My nails aren’t very strong so I sometimes strengthen them with a clear gel but most of the time I just leave them natural with a layer of nail polish. I recently switched from square to almond and I must say that if your nails break easily this is a much easier shape to grow them in, especially if they usually break at the sides. 

Cuticle wise- I stick by Vaseline. It might just be a Malawian thing or something I learnt from my grandma but in my books Vaseline works for pretty much everything and it works wonders on the nail bed and softening the cuticles. 

So lovelies, there you go. Just a little bit about my nails and how I maintain them. If any of you have any tips and tricks or ideas feel free to let me know. 

Kisses! 

- Jade xx