Saturday 19 February 2011

What happens when you don’t wear a base coat on your nails: before and after and my attempts at nail brightening

How many of you scrupulously wear a base coat before painting your nails. I think this is one of these things you learn with experience and unless you're not bitten / stung you'll never learn. It was time I learnt and I wanted to share with you the results of my carelessness.

About 2 or 3 days ago roughly, I applied a gorgeous dark blue nail polish from Asda without applying a base coat. It was the first time I was testing this nail polish and I applied it on my 'photo hand' my left hand. Right hand stayed bare. 24 hours after, when I removed the nail polish, I noticed the carnage of my carelessness: my nails got really badly stained.

On the photo below, the "before" side shows the hand where I didn't apply evil nail polish. After picture shows the results of my carelessness, where I applied the nail polish without a base coat.


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Now if this is not encouragement enough to always wear a base coat, I don't know what is, especially when my nails were decent colour before.
I am not going to lie, I got a bit depressed by it. Most of all, I was a bit embarrassed at work. How embarrassing for someone to blog about nails in their spare time to end up with such badly stained nails like that.


Image19In an attempt to reduce the stains and regain the natural colour of my nails, I googled for some homemade remedies. Results yielded to resorting a homemade mixture of bicarbonate of soda and fresh lemon juice to apply to nails every day for a period of 6 weeks. 6 weeks? I just had to find another solution and I wanted to try the 'denture whitening tablets' method.
So I went to Boots and bought a 'extra strength' tube of Steradent at £1.62. I was very happy to read that the first ingredients listed was sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. The stuff is probably a bit too harsh for nails but I really wanted to have a go. Poured some hot water on a fizzy tablet in a small glass and left my left hand soaking there for a while.

 
Results? I was very happy. My hand was super dry the following morning when I woke up (which was this morning) but nothing that a hand cream couldn't cure. There is still some staining, but I feel it has lightened a lot! I am happy :)


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Nail base coat are like condoms, god knows what happens to you if you don’t wear one :P

6 comments:

Sophie said...

Hahah! Great post! I never wear a base coat, and I know that I should. I am just impatient at waiting for all the different coats to dry :)

Nats said...

'Nail base coat are like condoms, god knows what happens to you if you don’t wear one ' that is AMAZING! hahaha Must admit, haven't often worn a base coat but then I don't wear nail polish often but next time I do, I'll def apply a base coat!
x

Ezzy said...

This post is useful..will definitely get those strength tablets in case the inevitable yellowness ever occurs :P

Sharmin said...

LOL i never ever wear a base coat LOL

LillianZahra said...

Gosh, that's really shocking what happened to your nails without a base coat! I always use a Sally Hansen base coat to try to strenthen and protect my nails so it's good to know that it does actually make a difference! x

SilhouetteScreams said...

Oh god, I'm awful at wearing a base coat. I literally never do. But now I know what to do when I get staining! :) Great post.

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