nail polish

[Alexandria]

As a rookie I have a question about nail polish. How easy is it to do your nails feet and fingers. How long does it take to get this off? When you dress up how much of the experience do you get from doing your nails. Do you go with your toes polished all the time or do you go with both of them all the time?

[KimberlyS]

You can do your nails in a few minutes and you will get faster with some practice. You also need to let the nails dry for a bit depending on the polish you use or you will mess them up which is what I often do as I tend to rush the dry time. How long to get it off depends on the polish and how thick you put it on. A basic coat should be off in 5 minutes.

Now the other answers for the questions that you are not asking. Since you are asking time questions I am assuming this is going to be a hurry put on and take off situation. The problem may be is when you put on or take off polish you can smell the polish or the remover for a while, so if you think you can hurry up and remove the polish just in time, your wife may not see it but she will smell.

Good Luck

[Davita]

How easy is it to do your nails feet and fingers.

How coordinated are you? I'm right handed so polishing my right hand can prove a challenge some days. How steady of a hand do you have? BTW, using lots of strokes does not make for smooth polish so you need to figure out that happy medium where you have enough polish for a few strokes but not so much you can drip or bubble or take days to dry.

Feet have a challenge your hands don't have. You can't see all of each toe nail without being a bit of a contortionist. Plus you have to be able to bend over long enough to actually get some polish on them toes.

Generally too, you don't really want to just slop some polish on your nails without getting/doing a bit of a mani or pedi. Messy nails makes for messy polish. I tend to do all my nail prepping the day before. I just relax in front of the TV and do my mani and pedi then the next day, I just have to do the polish.

How long does it take to get this off?

It depends... ok, that's $5 for the consultation An ordinary polish comes off fairly quickly, but as Kim said, you do have to deal with a certain amount of smell. Now some of the other "depends"... Some polishes stain your nails so that can be a royal pain to completely get off. Actually, one of my fave polishes is inexpensive and it tends to stain. Anything in the polish that isn't "polish" -- glitter, etc -- tends to make it harder to take off the polish. I'm sure you have heard of gel and that you can buy a gel you can apply yourself. Gel is notorious for hard to get off.

Now you might think you got all your polish off, but you can get some under your cuticles and miss it. You can simply not see the edge and miss some polish. Again, if you have messy nails, this makes for messy polish and then a more difficult clean up when you take the polish off.

When you dress up how much of the experience do you get from doing your nails.

Hummm.. that's really a personal take. It's so different for everyone. I have my nails done as mush as not. When I go out en fem, I want to look good so that includes a decent polish job. However, a decent mani with no polish will meet my needs at times too. Some days doing my nails are a chore other times it can be relaxing and naturally I'm gonna like the results either way.

Do you go with your toes polished all the time or do you go with both of them all the time?

Toes last lots longer than fingers plus they are a pain to do sooooooooooo I do my toes and change them less often than my fingers. Remember too, nails need a rest from polish; they need to breath to stay healthy. I don't go from polish to polish to polish with my fingers, but will go a week with polish and up to a week without. My toes will go weeks with whatever color I last used, but again, I will let them go naked for a week once I take the polish off.

Lastly, polish isn't particularly good for your nails and the stuff you use to take the polish off is never going to be good no matter what the manufacturers say. The best they can do is make it less bad. Sometimes less bad also means it's not as easy to take the polish off.

[DonnaT]

Fingernails aren't hard to do. A stroke down the middle of the nail and one on each side of the middle stripe.

Toenails are harder due to my waist getting in the way when I bend over.

If you put a matte primer layer down before adding color polish, it will be easier to remove.

Note that not all removers are equal. I prefer acetone based removers, if not straight acetone.

I reckon when I go out, my nails are usually done, just to make them less manly looking.

[Eileen (SO)]

Alexandria,

Every woman needs a buffing bar. A four sided stick that will reduce those ridges on finger nails. Toes I don't do, umm, it's not the tummy that gets in the way. You can get a really nice appearance by buffing without any polish at all. Add a clear coat and you have pretty nails with no stain problems to worry about. Buffing also is necessary to make polish flow for the right look. Just like painting a wall, a smooth surface and proper primer, base coat. Otherwise, you're just wasting time and polish.

Woman to woman, GG to CD, whatever. I don't use nail polish except for certain occasions. Yes, it makes a women feel more feminine. Starting with a base coat, then two or more coats of color, depending on tint and brand, finally a top coat. Allowing each coat to dry properly, this should take about an hour if rushed. Ya, that's why I don't wear polish every day.

Any time the husband goes for a 'girl's night out', nails are done nicely. The attention to certain details like this make the difference between presenting as a woman in public, or just a guy in a dress.

Eileen

[JessiEM]

If you wash your hands with a hand sanitizer (such as the hospitals use) it removes the smell of the polish remover in my experience.

[Kelly]

Can't wait to try the hand sanitizer trick....

I love doing my nails. Doesn't happen as often as I would like, though. The good news is that because it happens so rarely, I can get aggressive with remover. I have a 2 qt jug of acetone in my garage (useful in so many ways) soak a shop rag in it and the polish comes right off. Most of the time anyway, during cold weather it takes a bit more work.

Nobody has questioned why there is a pink stained rag laying around......

Application takes patience and a bit of practice. Do an internet search to find some pretty good instruction and maybe a you-tube tutorial. At first I was coloring outside the lines and my fingers were a mess. That is were the steady hand comes into play. Lay off the lattes.

I also try to keep my nails in good shape and buffed so they are ready to go.

If you work with your hands, then keeping dirt out is really important. It will show through the polish. So keep an eye on that.

Its a great feeling noticing well painted nails as your day goes by.

Enjoy.

Kelly.

[SilverLady(SO)]

If you wash your hands with a hand sanitizer (such as the hospitals use) it removes the smell of the polish remover in my experience.

While using a hand sanitizer may remove the smell of the nail polish remover from your hands . . . it will not remove the smell of it that remains in the room and that, my friends, is what gets you 'caught'.

You may not smell it because your body has acclimated to the smell, but not so someone else walking into the room.


FWIW, that is the same reason why 'you' cannot smell your own perfume or cologne a short time after you apply it, and why so many people wrongly put on even more. Now they smell like they have marinated in it (or worse) and they can be smelled long before/after one enters/leaves a room, etc. to the extreme annoyance of everyone around them (and it's even worse for those of us with lung problems such as asthma). Yes, it's one of my biggest pet peeves, and rightly so - - I've had an asthma attack induced by someone who had marinated in their perfume/cologne.


- SL

[DonnaT]

Nobody has questioned why there is a pink stained rag laying around......

Just be careful with rags and extremely flammable acetone, they can spontaneously combust when drying if improperly stored.

[JessiEM]

That's why i said in my experience... nobody else uses my room lol Even I can smell it in there but it removes the smell to everyone else

[Stephanie H]

If you smoke, please do not light a match or lighter... Acetone remover is very flammable.

[Sarah Ann]

I wear polish on my nails 24/7 except when going to town in drab. Love it. My observations are:

-Red is always in taste and in fashion (I feel the same about lipstick)

-Pure acetone polish remover is far faster and more complete than the watered down stuff with the lanolin, etc., in it.

-Cotton facial pads (the square corrugated ones) seem to work best for me. I soak them good and then scrub with them.

-I usually do this outside on my porch and leave the pads in the BBQ pit to dry thoroughly before disposing of them.

-Acetone fumes are explosive like gasoline, NO flames, smoking, sparks, etc.

[MichelleZ]

Practice makes perfect, applying or removing. My old GF painted my toes in punishment for forgetting her birthday two years in a row. She knew of my nylon fetish also...I got hooked, now painted toes are a "must" in sheer toe nylons for me, just too plain without polish. I enjoy the comments made by others while shopping for nail polish!