Thursday's Talons: Nail Care

Currently listening to: Science and Faith by The Script

Hi girls,

I hope you are all well and having a good week. Today is the final day I have to work in Liverpool which means the end of my long working days (7.30am - 7pm) and the start of blogging properly again, yay :-)

Today I'd like to show you the products I use to help me take care of my nails. For those of you who have followed me for some time, you might have noticed that my nails are a lot longer now than they used to be, especially back in the day when I would complain about peeling nails and end up cutting them right down.

My nails still aren't in great condition but they're better than they used to be. Here are the products I believe have helped strengthen my nails:

OPI Avoplex High Intensity Hand & Nail Cream and OPI Avoplex Cuticle Oil. When I first bought these, I used the cream twice a day and the cuticle oil once a day, I think. Recently I've been neglecting this routine and have only used the products a couple of times a week so I need to start using them more regularly again. I'm not sure if these specific products have helped my nails or whether other brands of cream and oil would help just as well. Do you have any recommendations?

My nails used to peel a lot which in turn caused my polish to chip at the tips very quickly. Someone suggested I started buffing my nails so when this product caught my eye, I decided to grab it.

This is a mini nail file which has four sections to file, smooth, buff and shine your nails.

I actually haven't used the buffing file but I've made good use of the smoothing file and that's certainly helped the condition of my nails. My only complaint with this is that the file designed for filing isn't great. I would really like a glass or crystal nail file now.

Finally, I use OPI Original Nail Envy and Collection 2000 2 in 1 Base Coat and Ridge Filler. When I first got Nail Envy, I used it as instructed for two weeks with no other nail polish. I didn't see great results but now I use it as a base coat all the time. I would like to think it's had some effect. The Ridge Filler is also a product I use whenever I paint my nails to create a smooth surface for polish. Apparently pink top coats are more effective at preventing staining from bright and dark colours than clear top coats so that's something worth bearing in mind.

So there we go ladies, those are the products I currently use to help take care of my nails. Have you tried any of these? Would you recommend any products I haven't tried? What products do you use in your nail care routine?

Bye for now,
Laura