My Favorite Manicure

Ok, so true to my blog title I feel I should comment on my inspiration....my manicures! Right now I am sporting the new Shellac Manicure, or 14 day manicure, as some salons are calling it. It looks like regular polish, isn't thick like gels, but it stays on for 14 DAYS!! This is the second one I have had, and I just love it. I have french now, and even though I keep my nails really short because of work and everything I do at home, it still looks great. I have to change my regular polish about twice a week because of chipping, so this saves me a lot of time (later blog will explain how a busy mom can find time to do a bi-weekly manicure and the products I use to make it flawless, quick, and durable). A few pointers for those who may try this fabulous manicure:

1. Call around. There seems to be a pretty wide variance in the price of these manicures from salon to salon. I got the manicure last Thursday at a fairly well known nail salon on the East side and paid $46. It would have been $40, but I paid an extra $6 for the french, which is fairly normal. My sister went to THE SAME nail salon on the West side the next day and paid only $25 for the very same manicure (minus the french, so with the french it would have been $31). The person who did her nails gave her the option of adding a hand massage and lotion application, or not. Since she said no, the charge was only $25. He explained to her that a lot of times the technicians don't explain this to their clients, but he does because he wants them to continue to come back by making it affordable. Bottom line, shop around and ask questions. For $25 this is a great treat a couple of times a month. They look great, and don't look fake at all!!

2. Maintenance. Being the manicure connoisseur that I am, I have done a little reading on this. Make sure you have a good moisturizer or cuticle oil to put on you fingers when you have this manicure done, as it can draw moisture out of your cuticles and make them dry. Otherwise they are totally maintenance free for at least 2 weeks.

3. OOPS. So yesterday I was reaching in our bathroom cabinet for something and knocked over, what else, but a bottle of nail polish. Of course it fell and shattered on the cabinet floor, leaving me to clean it up before it was tracked all over the house. Even though I was really careful, of course I still got some bright pink polish on my neatly manicured nails. Secret: only acetone based polish remover will take off the Shellac manicure, so all I had to do was take some non-aceteone polish remover and a Q-tip and touched up the areas that were stained with the pink polish. Good as new.

4. Color Selection. There are currently about 25 colors of this polish, including the french option. There are a wide variety, but if you are into bright blues, or grays (my favorite polish choice over the winter months) you are going to be out of luck here. Otherwise they have a nice selection of neutrals, pinks, reds, and dark burgundy.

So that was my first official post about my manicures. Again, it reminds me that I'm not just a mom, I'm still a person and I still have style. That makes me a better mom.