WHY DO MY NAILS CHIP SO MUCH MORE IN WINTER?
Even with gellack on, have you noticed how much shorter your manicures last in winter? From chips, shattered nails and even the entire gellack polish coming off in one piece, manicures just don’t last as long. Why is this?
The main reason for chipped or even shattered nails in winter is the cold. Our nails are so much drier and more prone to damage.
During cold weather, the nail plate becomes dehydrated, resulting in peeling and splitting nails, which fray at the edges. As a consequence, the nails may break and become more fragile, and can easily catch on clothing. You can chip a nail from doing the slightest thing, even with gellack.
The reason gellack can lift and slide off in one piece is also connected to this, we use more moisturizers and oils in winter, which in turn makes the nail bed greasy meaning gellack doesn’t bond as well.
Here are a few tricks to help make your manicure last a bit longer in winter.
- Don’t soak the nails before a manicure – soaking them can distort the nail and when you paint over this, it then shrinks and causes the polish to chip.
- Don’t forget to push back the cuticles, if you get polish on the cuticles it peels more easily and will ruin your manicure
- Use a cuticle oil – while oils and moisturisers can cause lifting of the polish, it will help to keep your nails healthy. It’s important not to use oil based products on your nails before applying colour. Make sure to cleanse the nails before applying colour, using an acid free primer can help with this issue.
- Rubber gloves! Don’t do washing up or use cleaning products without putting on some rubber gloves, the hot water and chemicals will weaken the gellack.
- Don’t cut your nails between manicure appointments, this will cause the seal to break, which can result in lifting and peeling of the nail polish.
