I can’t be the only one who knows the painful feeling that comes with spending the day doing your thing, planning for later in the day when you will sit down to swatch some new polishes… Only to realise you’ve broken off one of your nails during your travels. I hate when this happens and usually it means I need to file everything down to nubs and wait for them all to grow out. But not this time, I decided. This time I was going to try applying a single artificial nail to my nub, using the Nailene Designer Collection Artificial Full Cover Nails that I picked up at Shoppers on the way home. How did it work out for me? Check below to see!
Here’s what my nails looked like at the beginning of this adventure. Look how sad my middle nail is. 🙁 I thought if any of them went it would be my ring finger which is being held closed at the ripped edge with a bit of nail glue, but no. How sad!
So to start the process out to fix up this mess, I needed a few things…
I got myself situated in a place with some good light and rounded up:
- Some nail polish remover and a cotton pad to wipe down my nail to remove any oils before applying the artificial nail
- A nail file to shape the artificial nail (which came in my Nailene kit)
- A buffing block to lightly smooth and rough up my nail before applying the glue and nail
- Some nail glue (which came in my Nailene kit)
- And my Nailene artificial nails
Before I got to work I needed to select the right size of nail from the kit. There were a wide variety of sizes so I just laid them down on top of my nail one by one to find the right size. Once I found it I used the following process to apply the nail:
- Wipe down and buff your broken nail.
- Take your artificial nail and apply an even layer of nail glue. You want to make sure you don’t leave gaps where air can get in and under, or water can get in and lead to nail fungus (ewww).
- Firmly press down the glued nail and hold for 10 seconds.
- When nail is firmly fit (I waited 40-60 seconds) take your nail file and shape the artificial nail to match your other nails.
- If desired, lightly buff the top of your artificial nail to roughen it up a bit for polish to hold.
And that’s it! Here’s what my finished nail looked like:
And here’s a look at how the whole process worked out for me:
Amazing! Bet you couldn’t guess the nails in this post all had an artificial nail in the mix, am I right? 🙂
I found the Nailene kit had a huge selection of sizes in it, and with 200 nails in the kit I’ll have enough for ages to come since I’ll only be using one or two here and there. For around $10 this kit was definitely worth it. And if you’re looking for nail glue I found the glue in the Nailene kit worked much better than some others I’ve used for nail repair from other brands! This nail held for about 5 days before it popped off while doing chores.
Overall I am extremely happy with how this experiment turned out! No longer do I have to wait weeks for my nail to grow back once I break one! I know that artificial nails are always a hot topic in the nail blogging world and that people tend to have very strong opinions about blogging and swatching with them, but to be honest I’m not really bothered. I found a solution that works for me, and I’m pleased with it.
