Who does not love this season? Holidays, spending days under blankets, only sipping tea and not having to worry about work! But just one look at those hands and you know you are in trouble.
That layer of flaky, dark skin covering the hands and you know you need a manicure. Try these steps out to save the hefty parlor bill and have a wonderful manicure at home at the same time.
Getting a manicure done is an absolute necessity in this month of winters. The skin loses its moisture due to the dryness of the weather and becomes flaky. It needs to be moisturized and that dry skin needs to be exfoliated away. Following these steps below would sure give you the baby soft hands you would want!
But before you start, there is a list of things you’ll need as mentioned below. Don’t worry; all these things would be available at home!
1) Any vitamin E enriched nail oil
2) Nail file
3) Buffing block
4) Any scrub that you like
5) Any moisturizer that you like
6) A nail polish (one for the base, one for the top coat, one for the color)
7) A nail polish remover
8) A bucket
STEP ONE
Always start off with clean the hands and by doing that I mean remove any nail polish that you applied earlier. It might leave you with bad yellow marks on your nails which you can remove by buffing them away with a buffing block. Buffing helps to bring out the inner shine of your nails and to remove any marks left by the previous nail polish applications. Then, cut your nails in which ever shape you like with a nail cutter. Care should be taken while doing this as if this isn’t done properly then the hands may not look too presentable. Now, proceed to the second step.
STEP TWO
Fill the bucket with warm water and then soak your hands in it. Warm water is normally used to soften your hands. Leave hands in it for five minutes. Don’t over soak your hands. Then take your hands out and it’s time to scrub them! To scrub them, you can use whichever scrub you like or if you cannot find any scrub, and then just use sugar. It’s the best scrub found at home at all times. Just mix it with any moisturizer such as honey or coconut oil. Scrub your hands until you feel all the dry skin coming off. This should take 5 minutes for each hand. Then rinse your hands and pat them dry.
STEP THREE
Caring for your cuticles is very essential. Therefore, you can use an orange wood stick to ever so gently push them back. Make sure to not tear the cuticle as this may cause the nail to look bad. You only want to bring out a good shape to the nails and that’s all. You can even apply some more oil here to soften your cuticles and to make them appear to be more shiny and healthy. Then wipe off the oil from the cuticles and move on to step number four.
STEP FOUR
Apply any moisturizer to your hands after you are done with scrubbing them and shaping the nails – though this may not be entirely necessary for you if you don’t have too dry skin. But if the skin is too thirsty for moisture, then surely go ahead and apply it. If any moisturizer isn’t available at home, then you can even simply mix some olive oil in a teaspoon of honey and milk.
STEP FIVE
This is the most fun step; its painting your nails!
Get a nail polish for the base coat and apply it generously on your nail. Then, apply the base coat. The color that you chose for this is totally up to you and your mood. It is up to you if you want to go for a more matte look then you can just apply the base coat and leave it like that. Or if you prefer something shinier then you can go ahead and apply the top coat. And here you are good to go with perfectly shaped and painted nails.
This is your guide on how to take care of your hands in this winter. You can do this manicure once or twice a week and you won’t have to fight the constant dryness and flakiness of skin.
Winter calls out to repeated scrubbing off dry skin and moisturizing it. Therefore follow these simple steps with every item available at home to get silky smooth hands!