Summer of 2014 Bronzed, glowing, healthy summer Tip #11: Hand care – with Dior and Chanel

Tags

chanel, Chanel #307 Orange Fizz, dior, DIor Abricot Gentle Nail Polish Remover, Dior Abricot Oil, Dior Base Coat Abricot, nail care, summer 2014

I can not believe this is the last post of the Summer of 2014 Series. First of all, I would like to thank you all beautiful, for your support and for the time you took to read and comment on each and every single post of this Series. Your lovely feedback took me to this point, where I am writing this final Tip of the Series: the Summer of 2014 Bronzed, glowing, healthy summer Tip#11: Hand care with Dior and Chanel.

I am going to take you through every step of my nail care routine. This is how I usually do my nails all year round, what make is it summery is the bright-coloured nail polish I used to paint my nails.

So let’s begin!

STEP #1 is to make sure I have everything I need in one place. I used: Dior Huile Abricot Daily Nutritive Serum, Dior Dissolvant Abricot, Dior Base Coat Abricot, Chanel #307 Orange Fizz nail polish. I also make sure to have a towel, some wood sticks to remove the cuticles and to clean my nails and some large cotton pads.

STEP #2 is to remove my old nail polish. ( The one in the picture is another favourite of mine from Dior, #754 Pandore. Amazing! ) I use the Dior Abricot Gentle Nail Polish Remover on a large cotton pad. This is a gentle disolvant which smells like apricots and it is so effective that I do all my nails with just one cotton pad soaked in it. It has no damaging effect on my nails ( not making them yellow or dies them ).

STEP #3. What I like to do after removing my nail polish is to go on with applying a cuticle oil to moisturize my cuticles. That makes them easier to work with. The one I use right now is Dior’s Huile Abricot.

Cuticle oils are a fairly recent discovery for me! I used to be the one to cut my cuticles with a cuticle scissors almost all my life. So they became very big and dry, if that makes sense. I gave up on cutting them a few months ago, and used plenty of cuticle oils. But the one that helped me the most was coconut oil. It made them smaller and easier to work with.

Now that my cuticle oil worked its magic, I take a wooden stick and push them. Then I clean the excess skin from the nails with the other side of the stick. The wooden stick is more gentle than that metallic device and does not harm the nail. Then I go in with my glass file from Art Deco to shape my nails. Sometimes I use a clipper too, but the glass file does an amazing job! This would be STEP #4.

STEP #5 is to paint my nails. Because Chanel nail polishes have the bad habit of chipping the same day you apply them ( at least on me they chip like crazy! ), I like to apply a base coat to make the colour last longer. Here I applied one coat of the Dior Base Coat Abricot, an amazing base coat that not only protects the nails but it also evens out their surface, filling all those ugly, uneven ridges.

Once the base dried, I applied this bright orange Chanel nail polish, in #307 Orange Fizz. I love this colour for summer. It is not a secret that Chanel always comes out with amazing nail polish colours, which apply smoothly on the nails and go opaque in just 2 coats. But in terms of lasting power – let’s say they are not the best!

And I am done! This is the final result! One last thing I like to do is to moisturize my hands with a lightweight hand cream and apply once more that Dior Apricot Serum!

How do you take care of your nails?

See you soon, beautiful!

xx, Annie