Today I have a how-to for you about a frequently asked question:
'How to get that smooth line between the cuticle and the polished area?"
There are great articles about the clean-up method I use on other nail blogs, but I get this question so often I thought it wouldn't hurt to make my own article about it. I don't know who invented this method, but I can assure you: it's brilliant! Edit: I believe it was Megan Chair, so she's brilliant. :) Using corrector pens and q-tips for cleaning up? No more. Well, for me that is.
What you need is a nail polish remover with acetone or pure acetone (make sure there is some acetone involved, it won't work well without it) and a small flat brush. I prefer a flexible slanted brush. This one came in a cheap brush set from eBay, but you can use whatever brush you like. I don't recommend using a fancy expensive brush, because the acetone (not the friendliest stuff) is going to damage your brush. After a couple of months (or weeks, depending on the brush you use and how often you use it) you'll be needing a new one.
I tried my best to polish one nail messy. That was actually quite hard to do as I'm not used to doing it like that anymore, lol. The more often you polish your nails the better it's going to look even without cleaning up, practice makes perfect (yeah, blah-blah, but it's true! ^^ ).
So, here we have a somewhat messy painted nail. Let's do something about that.
• Wait a couple of minutes after applying the last coat of polish or top coat otherwise you'll make the line even messier. Trust me on this one. :)
• Pour a little bit of remover in a small bowl or what I like to do: in the bottle cap of the remover.
• Dip your brush in the remover and dab the excess off on a paper towel. You don't want the remover to drip off your brush and ruin your freshly painted nails.
• Now I have a couple of pictures to show you how to do the actual clean-up. Swipe your brush lightly from the left side of the nail to the right side to remove any mistakes and create a perfectly smooth line between the cuticle and the polish. You probably have to dip your brush in the remover a couple of times more (don't forget to dab the excess off) and swipe again. If you're wearing glitter polishes or polishes with flakes it will be hard to get a smooth line. So try to be as precise as you can when you're polishing your nails with these.
That's it! A simple trick with a great effect. Now it looks like you see below. Much better, right?
After using acetone for the clean-up your skin will scream for moisture so you can apply some hand cream or cuticle balsam around the nail now. Be careful not to touch the polished area if it's not completely dry. We don't want to mess up the perfectly cleaned up nails now, do we?
I hope this was helpful! If you have any questions let me know in a comment.
Thanks for watching! :h
