Nail Confession

Hello Lovelies!  I know it has been an incredibly long time since, I've done a nail post here or even mention my nails.  I have been incredibly busy with life in general, and in late fall I went through a bit of funk that kept me from enjoying anything nail related.  It is with great shame that I make a few nail confession.

Early last fall, I overwhelmed myself with nail art projects that had committed deadlines.  I was so excited to be asked to join so many collaborations that I didn't want to say no.  By late fall, I was so burned out that I didn't even want to look at my nails let alone paint them.  So, I decided to take a bit of a nail art vacation.  However, this quickly turned to nail neglect.  Life gets busy, as I'm sure many of you know.  For me, when I fall out of a routine I really crash and burn.  My nail routine got put on a back burner and I ignored it completely.

By the time the Christmas season came around my nails were a mess.  Being the impatient person that I am, I decided to try an at home acrylic kit.  I have never done my own acrylics before, but new from salon experiences I had decades ago, that they are bad.  My thoughts were, since I'm doing them myself, that I would have control and I know better than to buzz down the surface of my nails.  I was pleased with the initial application.  I did not expect that doing a fill would be extremely difficult, and being a bit of a perfectionist, I wasn't happy with them after I had done the first fill.  I let them grow out until I couldn't tolerate them anymore which wasn't very long.

I spent an entire afternoon soaking them off, only to reveal that I had filed down the surface of my nails more than I had intended to.  Sadly, it gets worse, because my nails were so thin, brittle, and abused they kept chipping and ripping.  It was so constant that I could not grow my nails even a millimeter.  The endless ripping and tearing lead me to fall into an old horrendous habit,  nail/finger bitting!  I haven't done this in years, and I am really ashamed.

I've decided that it is time to stop making excuses, and feel sorry for my nails.  I miss doing nail art and am ready to do something about it.  For Valentine's Day, I bought myself a lovely set of nail care goodies from Lilly Anne's Garden.  I have made purchases from Misty for some of my nail friends in the past, but had not yet tried her products for myself.  I decided that this was the perfect time for me to test out her goodies.

The set included a sugar scrub, body whip, cuticle oil, waxes melts, and chap stick (which I can never get enough of).  Each product came in a different scent too, giving me an opportunity to enjoy a handful of lovely fragrances.

I started with a sugar scrub to help remove dead skin. This scrub smells divine and did a good job off minimizing skin freys.

I then did some much needed moisturizing. I started with the body whip, slathering my hands completely. I followed that with the application of cuticle oil. I rubbed both on my hands and nails but did not rub it in completely, allowing my skin to absorb it at its own pace.

For the past three days I have scrubbed my hands once a day, moisturized with the body whip 2-3 times a days, and applied the cuticle oil every hour or every other hour as needed. This is a similar routine to what I've used in the past but never with Lilly Anne's Garden products.  I love the scents of these products and they are doing a good job of getting my hands and nails back to normal.

Though my nails still have a long way to being fully recovered. They look and feel far better than they have in weeks. Not to mention they smell good, even my husband has commented on how wonderful they smell.

I will be participating in the upcoming Mani Swap Circle on Instagram and have a few nail art designs in mind that I would like to create soon. Thanks for being patient with me, and thank you for sticking with me here and on my other social networks. If you haven't, feel free to check me out on Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest. Thanks for stopping by!

Just Me,