So, you Dopers with real nice nails – do you all have dishwashers, or what? How do you do it?
Cause even with gloves, if I ever try to have my nails polished, as soon as I do dishes, they’re toast.
I don’t have my hands manicured, but since two months, I do have real and nice nails. I had a dishwasher all the time, but my real problem was nailbiting. What finally helped was a combo of a nailhardener and this anti-biting stuff.
I don’t get professional manicures often but I have nice nails. Not nice long nails because I think long nails are dirty and gross but I maintain them well and polish them quite often.
My best tips: 1) You get what you pay for. I couldn’t begin to tell you why, but more expensive polish stays put better than the stuff you get at Wal-Mart for $2.47. 2) Top coat. It helps.
How long do you wait between getting your nails done and washing the dishes? In my experience, nail polish takes way, way longer to fully dry than one would think. Don’t wash the dishes for several hours (like 4-5 hours at least) after a manicure.
I once worked as a hand model, because in addition to having long, slender fingers, I was deemed to have very nice nail beds.
For nice polished nails: O P I is good stuff. There’s other good stuff, but lots of bad stuff. There is polish, and there is lacquer. Lacquer will stay nice longer. A couple of thin coats are better than one thick coat.
Here are two tips I never use: Before gardening, scratch a bar of soap so there’s a bit of soap under your nails, then wear a soft cotton glove under your gardening glove. (Way too much trouble, but would probably work. I think it would be easier if the bar of soap was soft.)
Slather hands with hand cream then put your cotton gloves (another pair, you can buy them buy the gross) on and wear them all night.
I was a pretty low-rent hand model. You pretty much have to maintain your own hands, they are not going to put fake nails on you or anything, so it’s important, if you’re working in that biz, to maintain them. Before going to an audition, I would soak them for awhile in warm water, to plump them up and make them smooth. The art directors often slapped on some makeup, and it was sort of shiny stuff, but if you have a cat scratch or a broken nail, forget it, there are plenty of other people with nice hands. I should note that during that part of my life I had no need to wash dishes, and not much need to garden, either. I did pretty much have to give up Frisbee.
My husband does the dishes. 
I don’t get professional manicures done very often, anyway, but I cook so he does dishes.
I know all about this 'cause I watch Andy Griffith. The thing is if Jeannie is polishing your nails you’re wife will get jealous and drive her out of town.
Dishwasher + Husband does dishes = Nice Nails.
I can’t keep mine nice for very long either. I work in a lab and wear gloves all day, washing my hands often. Polish is chipping or fading within two days, so I don’t often bother anymore.
I get acrylics because polish does not stay on my natural nails, no matter what I do. So, acrylics+boyfriend does dishes+dishwasher = spectacular nails.
I blew it. There are two kinds of polish: Enamel and lacquer. (Not polish and lacquer.) Lacquer is still what you want. Enamel is what you put on if you want your nails to look nice for one night. Lacquer will last a week or more.
Am I the only one who wears Playtex Living Gloves? Even so, my job is rough on my hands so pro manicures are only for special occasions. If I forget the gloves they don’t last at all. The gloves only give me a couple of extra days.
Are you having problems with dried polish chipping off, or with the new polish getting all scraped up?
I usually do my own mani/pedi but I can keepmy polish in decent shape for a week of working with my hands. Constantly washing dishes at work and at home, wrangling rowdy dogs, going barefoot much of the warmer months, and gardening (for which I wear gloves) don’t make it easy! I usually have long nails, too.
Most important: I set aside an entire evening with little to do to make sure they harden without getting mussed. Do them at 6pm and barely use my hands until the next morning! I use OPI basecoat and polish, and put on a new layer of topcoat every single day and that keeps my color from chipping much (it also keeps them super-shiny which is what I like). I use lighter polishes so chips aren’t noticeable.
Well, mostly problems with chipping at the tip. It probably doesn’t help that I am trying to wear a shade of gruesome crimson, heh. But once it chips at all, the effect is…eh, not effective. The new top coat every day sounds like a good idea. Does base coat really make much difference?
I like the soap-under-the-nails idea for gardening, too.
I was unaware of the difference between enamel and lacquer. I have noticed the word “lacquer” on bottles, but I thought it was just an interchangeable term. If I buy a bottle that specifically says lacquer, can I be pretty sure that it’s not enamel?
p.s. Do they make colored acrylic nails that you don’t have to polish?
Since the gloves are living if you throw them out isn’t that murder? 
I have strong nails that grown fast, and I like their shape. Up until a couple of months ago, I usually just had a manicure done since I was having a pedicure done anyway, and they were fast and easy. Clean up the cuticles, shape them a bit, then clear polish, since color would chip within a couple of days and look terrible.
Now I’m completely hooked on soak off gel nail polish. There are a few brands out there, OPI Axxium, CND Shellac, and Harmony Gelish are the few that I’m aware of.
I go for the CND Shellac myself. If you can find a salon doing any of them, I definitely recommend trying it out. It’s pricier than a regular manicure (30 - 40 bucks or so), but it will last between 2 and 3 weeks. No chipping.
I like the CND since it requires no prepping of the nail. It’s about as easy as a regular manicure, and when I stand up from the chair, I can stuff my nails into my purse, put my jacket back on, hell, I can drag them across the sidewalk if I wanted to, and they absolutely will not smudge, chip, or smear.
I have a French manicure right now that was done 2 weeks ago today. Here’s a pic I just snapped. I left the salon and immediately began to scrub the baseboards of our house, wash windows, mop, vacuum, etc. That was 2 weeks ago, and I’ve done a hell of a lot more since then - dishes, toilets, tubs, you name it.
They still look like they were just done for the most part.
The one ‘problem’ with the manicure is nail growth, which is why I think I’ll stick with the French or neutral colors.
And taking it off is a bit of a process, but not terrible. My nail tech has me soak them in a bowl of acetone for about 10 minutes, then just scrapes off whatever is left.
If you don’t mind spending a little more and don’t mind having the same color on for 2+ weeks, I really think it’s totally worth it.
We had a great few threads about this recently. All your questions should be answered in the threads. Here are the links Linky 1 Linky 2, and here’s the summary.
-Thick gloves Every Single Time, for every single chore that involves water or cleaning. No cheapie ones - those really think purple Playtex ones are a good example.
-Top coat every other day.
-Don’t “use” your nails for anything - no bottle caps, not as an appliance, not scrubbing off that little bit of grit on a pot, even with gloves on, no tap tap tapping, nothing.
-Basecoat is critical - “sticky base coat”. Orly Bonder is a good example.
-Top coat is crucial - Seche Vite is nice.
-OPI is crucial, and not that “Nicole by OPI” crap. Don’t bother with anything else, though Diosa swears by Chanel. Says it lasts twice as long as OPI. I swear by Sally Hansen Hard as Wraps. The clear is a godsend.
-Thin layers of polish and making sure the nail bed is dehydrated - get every last drop of polish off, and swipe another layer of polish remover so the base coat really sticks to the nail.
-Use a crystal nail file and a 4-way buffer.
More tips: Don’t swipe that nail bed with polish remover before putting on your base coat. Use alcohol. The polish remover can eat into it or make it bubble.
I use polish remover, wash hands, use cuticle remover, wash hands, swipe nails with alcohol, then put on the base coat.
I am going to contradict lindsaybluth’s advice one more time. Somebody told me years ago that tapping your nails on things–drumming them, essentially, just using the tips–makes the nails stronger as it stimulates blood flow. (Like pulling your hair is supposed to make it grow faster.) I don’t know about that, but it doesn’t seem to hurt, and I do it just as a fidgeting thing and it doesn’t seem to hurt. My nails grow fast.
Sally Hansen does make good stuff, and it’s cheaper than OPI. But OPI’s the best, plus I love the color names. (Currently wearing Not Tonight Honey.)
I personally hate polish on my fingernails. I can feel it and it bugs me. (Polish on my toenails is okay, though.) When I get my nails manicured, which I haven’t done recently, but used to do fairly regularly, I get them buffed.
I’m not really sure what goes into the buffing process, but it looks great. Super shiny and pretty with no polish at all. I’ve been told it lasts longer than polish as well, although I can’t really say since I don’t paint my nails. Even when I didn’t have a dishwasher, the shine on my buffed nails wouldn’t wear off for a couple weeks.
I put OPI on my toenails about a week ago and it’s already chipping.
You’re right, I’ve actually heard both things, that any kind of hard surface + nail tips is bad, and also that it makes the nails stronger.