How To: Cuticle Care/Manicure Routine

I have recently gotten a lot of questions about my cuticle care routine and about the process of painting my nails. I thought that I would make an all in one post talking about the up-care for my nails and my step by step process to get a clean looking manicure. Check it out below!

Cuticle Care Routine

I only use three products when it comes to keeping my cuticles healthy: Burt’s Bees Cuticle Cream,  essie Apricot Cuticle Oil, and essie Many Many Mani Hand Lotion.

1. Make sure that your nails are clean and that there is no remaining polish on them.
2. Apply your essie cuticle oil to each nail from top to bottom especially rubbing it into your nail beds.
3. Let this sink in and then apply your Burt’s Bees cuticle cream to each nail.
4. Next take your Many Many Mani hand lotion and lather it all over your hands.
5. Sit with these products on your hands until they have sunk in.
6. Wash your hands with warm soap and water to make sure that you have gotten all of the oil and products completely off of your nails.
7. Take your cuticle pusher and gently push back your cuticles on each nail.
8. Next take your cuticle clippers and gently clip any dead/excess skin. It is very important that you do not clip any live skin during this process.
9. After this is done you have finished the cuticle care portion and are now ready to move on to the rest of the manicure.

*I do apply the cuticle oil, hand lotion, and cuticle cream off and on throughout the week overtop my manicures if I feel that my nails/cuticles are dry. I don’t always do all three at once and most of the time I just grab my essie apricot cuticle oil and rub a bit in on the bottom of each of my nails throughout the week so that they don’t dry out completely before I sit down again to do the entire process!

Manicure How To

1. First clip/file your nails down to your preferred length. If my nails are long or extremely grown out then I will cut my nails first before filing, however if they are not very grown out I will just touch them up quickly with my nail file.
2. Then buff the ends of your nails to make sure that they are straight and that any excess clippings that you may have missed are gone.
3. Once you finish with this wash your hands and dry them completely so that you can start the nail painting process.
4. Start by painting one coat of Seche Clear Base Coat on to each of your nails.
5. Let this dry for about a minute and then begin to paint your nails one at a time. I start with my left hand first and paint one thin coat of polish on each nail. Try to stay as far away from your cuticles and the edges of your nails as you can so that you have less clean up. Then move on to your right hand and complete the same process.
6. Then go over each nail and paint a second coat. If it is a lighter/sheer polish like ‘Ballet Slippers’ I wait a bit longer in between coats so that I don’t drag the polish and so that I can get better coverage on my second coat. If it’s a deeper color polish like ‘Aruba Blue’ I don’t normally wait in between painting coats.
7. After your second coat you may need to apply one or two more coats depending on how sheer the polish is and how opaque you want your polish to be.
8. Once you are done with this take a dish and fill it with 100% pure acetone for clean up. I use the Sally’s Beauty glass dappen dish for my polish remover because it cleans easily and is the perfect size to hold a small amount of remover. I then take my e.l.f Concealer Brush and dip it in the acetone and clean up my edges and cuticles to make them free of any leftover polish.
9. After this take your favorite base coat to apply over top your manicure. At the moment I’m loving the essie Platinum Grade Top Coat that was recently released with the Gel Couture Collection. Even though this is marketed to go over the GC polishes I wear it over all of my essie’s and love the results. The shine is amazing and it makes my polish last for so long!
10. Next comes the hard part…sitting still until your polish dries! I always try to watch tv, read, or do something where I’m not moving for about an hour after I paint my nails so that I don’t knick them.

That covers my nail routine from start to finish! Please let me know if you have any questions or if you want to share your nail care routine/tricks with me!