Best Non Toxic Nail Salon in Houston

Even if you have the best hands and the most beautiful nails, when it comes to celebrity nails, nail polish or simple flat-toed nails, beauty professionals are disappointed. There is such a thing as perfection, and no matter how perfect you believe your hands and nails to be, nothing comes close to matching a perfectly manicured celebrity manicure or polish. No matter how long you stay patting on your best manicure over, you’ll still find yourself the butt of a beauty industry joke. It’s not easy being the best manicurist. Below are 10 tips to make sure your hands and nails last longer than an hour, whether you’re polishing them at home or dropping them into your manicure chair.

1. Apply a Cool Base Coat: All your base coat is acting as a protective layer to your freshly painted nails, but you need to make sure to apply it before your top coat. “I’d suggest just leaving that bottom coat on, to the minimum setting,” Joanna Sprague, director of PHNX Nails in New York, says. The best bit is that your base coat will help keep your shine against chipping, too.

2. Apply a Tip After Ease of Use: You can use oils like olive or grape seed oil to help keep your nails in tip-top shape. Gaby von Sternberg, owner of de Schwartz Cosmetics in New York, recommends Vita Liberata Elements Retinol Cleansing Oil, coconut oil and sugar for the squeamish. (See how much oil it takes to make your nails!)

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3. Avoid Tying With Bad Straps: The $5 “coast” they usually use for your nails can leave your nails rubbing each other and making them sore. If your nails are in great shape, you can use a plain silicone button to push, but beware — something like this will ruin your nail beds.

4. Avoid Wrapping: Waxing your hands, though it saves in the sun and has a silver lining, can leave stains on your skin, and can dehydrate your nails when you wash them. A clear nail shield to match your nail polish is perfect, but, again, your nails will not remain identical. If you can’t decide, opt for something like BuckyBranch from Origins.

5. Turn Off Helium: The gas in your favorite gel-based nail polish is amazing for pedicures, but can cause severe dehydration on nails, brittle joints, and hair, too. Try Pantene Pro-V Massage Nail Scrub, which combines hydrating vitamins and gentler ingredients like olive oil and vitamin E.

6. Do Not Wash Your Hands With Dried Nails: Just like if you were to put your hands in contact with your hair, these disinfecting oils are obviously harmful to your hands, but they’re less so to your feet. Instead, use a water-based polish remover, like the Smoothing Nail Enamel Remover (Brand: Cosmetics) or Barefeet Hand Remover (Brand: Xhale Hands).

7. They Help to Tighten: They can harden flat, stumpy nails, too, so don’t send them free down the toilet with little toys!

8. Moisturize: Your nails require moisture whether you wear them salon-free or not, and hot or cold water is not enough. Sprague recommends using a hydrating top coat that also has great UV protection, like L’Occitane Special Route UV Defense Top Coat ($28).

9. Cut Your Nails Short: Nails shouldn’t be too big. If you’re constantly needing to pick your cuticles, let them grow out naturally. And by letting your nails grow out, they won’t waste heat from being brushed up in straightening irons or flat irons, so you’ll save a ton of energy.

10. Dip Your Needles in Nails From Time to Time: “On top of the fact that many people may not have hands that look normal, because they are constantly pulling them down, a lot of people are cutting too much off,” says Emily Maltby, director of PHNX Nails in New York. So to keep your nails to a normal size, make an adjustment. Before your next manicure, dip your cuticles in a moisturizing food, like coconut oil, while lightly spraying it on.