My Nail Care Routine 2015 | AlexandrasGirlyTalk

today I'm going to be showing you my at-home nail routine this is like a spa manicure at home and ever since I started doing it my nails like they've never looked better so I really enjoy this routine and I hope you guys do too let's get started so here are my nails right now this is a 1 week old manicure and I have shellac on my nails right now so the process of taking it off is a little bit different and I'm going to show you how to do that you're going to need nail polish remover with acetone as well as some cotton pads that I like to cut in half so they fit the nail better I also took some aluminum foil and I cut it into strips because we're going to be wrapping our fingers with this soak the cotton pad and nail polish remover until it's completely wet and then place it over top of your nail along with the aluminum foil just wrapped around so that it can secure and stay and soak this is basically a nail soak and this is going to remove everything so that when you go to scrape it off it's super easy works for gel polish it works for acrylic and glitter polish keep your nails soaking for like five minutes and then remove the Polish using a scraping tool or an orange stick for really hard to remove glitter polish you can use this method as well as shellac and gel manicures like I'm using today if you get gel or acrylic nails at a salon you can also use this method and leave the soak on for about 10 minutes if there's any little bits of nail polish left you can use a buffer or a really gentle nail file to scrape it away now the nails are completely bare I'm going to prep a bowl of water to soak my hands in this is pretty warm water so I'm going to let it sit for two minutes to cool it down while I let it sit I'm going to apply a cuticle remover I got this from Sally's Beauty Supply I'm going to put this on the outer areas with my nails where the cuticles are you can gently massage this into your nails and then let it sit for about a minute to soften the cuticles and then once that meant it's up you can soak your hands in the warm water for as long as you like it's really relaxing and it's going to soften the skin so we can remove the cuticles completely now I'm going to dry off my hands and use my cuticle cutters to trim off any hardened areas or hangnails that surround my nail beds I haven't always done this I used to just take my nail polish off and like put it back on and not really worry about the filing or the cuticle removal or anything like that but now that I do it my nails just photograph so much better and they look healthier they feel better and they go really long without me having to worry too much so I really like this routine once I've gotten rid of any of the hang nails or cuticles that I can see I'm going to start filing my nails I use a medium file that I got from Sally's this is about a dollar and I like to file my nails with it in one direction ever since I started doing this my nails don't break as easily because you're not roughing the nail up by running it back and forth and creating all of these jagged edges so I definitely recommend filing in one direction and smoothing out the nail with one long sweep at the end I'm going to apply a thin coat of this OPI natural nail base coat and I'm going to allow about a minute for it to dry it dries really really quick so you don't need that much time and then I'm going to use the trying to glaze polish to start painting my nails I have a little method of dot push the Polish up and then pull it down and then swipe side and side this is a method that I showed you and how to paint your nails perfectly and if you want to watch that video I've linked it below because it's so good if you're a beginner or if you just suck at painting nails it just helps you so much so I painted my nails that way using that dot push-pull side side method and then I'm going to apply a topcoat and let my nails dry the last step in this routine is taking a cuticle oil or even just olive oil whatever kind of healthy oil that you have at home you can use this as a cuticle oil to moisturize and soften the cuticles and keep them beautiful all week I really like this routine and I do it once a week to maintain the integrity of my nails they've just grown so much from short when I first started and then now there's so much longer and they're really strong and healthy and bright so I hope you guys like this video if you want to see more like this give it a thumbs up and I'll see you next time