00:00Your Best Self is brought to you by Garnier.
00:10A fresh manicure can be a simple way to practice a little self-care.
00:14And you don't need a trip to the salon to give your natural nails that clean, polished look.
00:19But before you reach for the nail polish, there are a few important steps to get your nails properly prepared.
00:25In tonight's Your Best Self, we get some easy at home tips on how to prepare, polish and protect your
00:32natural nails with owner of Passion Body by Shen, Shanice John.
00:37My business is my baby. I provide manis, pedis, facials, wax and massages, body scrubs.
00:44I put me in everything that I do. I am an advocate for natural. So everything that I do, it
00:51is super safe and natural.
00:53So tell me, what are the most important steps to take to prepare natural nails before you start applying nail
01:01polish?
01:01Definitely your nail prep. So you want to be able to remove any dead skin that is on the nails,
01:09push back your cuticles.
01:11Your dehydrating of the nail is very important. Any trap moisture, natural oils that remains on the nail, it could
01:17cause the polish to lift or to peel.
01:19So you don't want that at all. So a simple little bit of acetone or rubbing alcohol on a sponge
01:25or like a piece of cotton would be perfectly fine.
01:29Should we file on the shape of our nails before, after removing all nail polish and what nail shape is
01:35the easiest to maintain?
01:36So we definitely want to take away all the old polish first to see the integrity of the nail before
01:42we move forward.
01:44And in regards to shape, nail shape and easiest at home, work with your nail, the shape of your nail
01:51already.
01:51So your natural nail, whatever shape it is, would be the easiest you go with.
01:54So with your own, I would say you're definitely a scoville. You have like a square oval or like a
01:58more rounded to the corner square.
02:00What is the proper way to apply a base coat and why shouldn't we skip this step?
02:05So the proper way to apply a base coat, well, as you would see, we just prepped the nail properly.
02:10You'll want to definitely dehydrate the nails.
02:14Most important, this is some rubbing alcohol, so I'm just going to wipe away any excess natural oils and any
02:20dust, any particles that are left onto the nail.
02:23I just want to clean that up.
02:27If you don't or you skip this step, it's going to get trapped into the polish and it's going to
02:32go on uneven.
02:34After we dehydrate, we're going to jump into the base coat.
02:38So what I use is a nail hardener just to protect the integrity of the nail.
02:44So any softness or brittling, it will help with that one time.
02:47So if we're talking about regular polish, and this is one of the mistakes a lot of people make.
02:52When you go too thick with the polish, it tends to trap moisture.
02:55So what that is going to do is it's going to make it harder or longer to dry, right?
03:00So you don't want that.
03:01You want thin, even layers for your base coat to be able to dry properly to be able to go
03:06with the polish on top.
03:08What are some common mistakes people make when polishing their natural nails?
03:12Okay, so definitely I would say flood in the cuticle area.
03:16So exactly how I'm doing here, trying to work my way to the cuticle very, very gently and easily.
03:23A lot of persons will tend to take too much product onto the brush, start to the cuticle, and flood
03:29it with thick beads.
03:30You don't want to do that.
03:32Also, using thick beads of your application will cause or trap moisture into the nail, and you don't want to
03:41do that because then it's going to take even longer to dry.
03:44Also, one common mistake is definitely not waiting enough time in between coats for it to properly dry.
03:51With regular polish, it will tend to, because it's more of a sticky consistency, it's going to move.
03:57It's going to move around and not dry properly.
03:59So with the right preparation technique and a little patience, you can create your own simple manicure right at home.
04:07Until next time, I am Charlotte Kisto reminding you to be your best self.
04:18Your best self was brought to you by Garnier.
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