Sigh.

As most of you know (or all of you) I discovered and fell in love with press-on nails last summer on a TOTAL whim. And once I fell in love with them, I fell HARD. I’ve noticed over the last few months of having press-ons (I do always give my nails a break in between sets but for the most part, I’ve had a set glued on every month) that my nail health has severely deteriorated 🥺

I blame the majority of this on not knowing the proper methods of how to remove press-ons until very, very recently. Apparently, if you properly remove press-ons, there really shouldn’t be any damage to your nails. Proper removal meaning… gently soaking them off either with warm water & oil or some acetone based product. Of course not knowing this, I essentially would just pull and pry at the nails until they came off for the first few months. I would even … *GASP* PICK at the nails, which is the worst thing you can ever do. I even specifically remember there was one pair I used for my anniversary back in July that WOULD NOT COME OFF. I needed to get those nails off so that I could serve at VBS and I literally chewed them off with my teeth in frustration.

It’s months later and I can still see the damage that doing so did to my nails 🙁 You can see that the majority of the damage is toward the end of my nail bed indicating that it’s been growing out for awhile (yay) but the new nail too looks a bit dry and brittle.

SO! In an attempt to start 2022 off with the healthiest foot forward, I actually decided to take (at LEAST) the entire month of January to give my nails a break. My regimen was a nightly routine of nail oil and I also used nail strengthener here and there throughout the weeks.

I’m not gonna lie, there were definitely moments throughout January when I really wanted to use a set of press ons (y’all I found the CUTEST Korean press-on nail brand – I’ll blog about it in the future) or at least paint my nails in the least. BUT. I. RESISTED. And I’m so glad! Look at how much healthier my nails looked here in mid-Jan after just two weeks of consistently applying nail oil/strengthener to them! You can see that my thumb still had some damage at this point (and that fingernail was the most damaged from the press-on set back in July). But the overall appearance of my nails was smoother and shinier/stronger.

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Now that a full month has gone by, here we are! They’re not QUITE as 100% as I want them to be … so I’m not sure if I’ll keep my polish & press-on fast going or not. I really want to do a set for Valentine’s Day though so maybe just another week or so? Also, you might see some of the nail strengthener peeling off in the picture below – that’s not nail damage so pay no mind to it!

And here is how my nails look with my favorite nail strengthener applied. I love this one because it’s specifically designed for soft, peeling nails (which is how my nails become when they’re damaged) AND this strengthener gives a really pretty glossy shine to the nail. EEEP!

For anyone who wants, this is the cuticle/nail oil that I’ve been using and this is my all-time favorite nail strengthener from Nail Tek. I’ve been swearing by the Nail Tek strengthener for 15 years (I discovered it post-college when I was living in Korea) and the cuticle oil for about 7 years. So they’re tried & true products!