Fifty-Two Weeks

Check out these nails! My best fran Meg is at it again! Check out this great color and Hot Design she put on her nails! Love the lips Meg!  If your are interested in some of these great colors, you can pick up the Essence bottle from your local Ulta store and the Hot Designs can be found wherever you can purchase "as seen on TV" items. I hadn't seen the Hot Designs pens before, but after checking out the  website  I think I am going to have to get my hands on some of these tools and try them out! Want to see your nails on the blog? Just share them with me! I would love to post about what your getting up to with your nails! Be Radiant! Amanda #fiftytwoweeksofnails @theradiantamanda

Don't Pick It! I think most of us are famous for this, myself included, but for the sake of our precious nails we need to stop picking at our gel polish and start taking it off the right way! In today's post I will take us through the proper steps of safely removing gel polish at home. However, my personal advice is to always try and have a licensed nail technician take your gel polish off if you have the funds and time to do so. (Here is a detail image of damage that can be done to your nail if you do not remove gel polish correctly.) Part 1: Set up your work area To minimize the damage to you nail plate you want to make sure you have the right tools for removing your gel polish. Here are the key items you will need, and why, to do the job right: Nail file - for roughing up the surface of the nail polish Acetone - this breaks down the polish and makes it easy to come off Ten small cotton balls (or five large one pulled in half) - to soak in the acetone A...

I Bring My Own Tools! Just recently a friend of mine mentioned that she brings her own tools with her to the nail salon. I couldn't help it, but I cringed a bit and she asked me to explain my sour face.  Bringing your own manicuring tools isn't necessarily safer. In fact,  you may not be doing yourself any favors. It is more likely that your personal tools are more unsanitary than salon ones. But how can this be??  After appointments, customers usually seal their tools (including non-cleanable files) back in the bag without sanitizing them, which becomes a breeding ground for bacteria—even if it’s just their own. Or they decide that they will clean them when they get home. At home, you most likely do not have a hospital grade disinfectant, which is just one step of the required cleaning method. And once you wash the tool off, you most likely stick them right back in the same contaminated bag or box.   After each client, professional salons (di...