The tale of the nails
Oct. 25th, 2014 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gemfyreMy sister was a nailbiter, but it was a habit that never plagued me. I've always been able to grow long, nice looking nails. These days I can't let them get too long or else my ability to DO anything with my hands diminishes, and I also scratch myself to pieces with the claws.
I've always liked nailpolish. It was colour I put on myself, and it didn't feel gross like makeup on my face did. I had a decent collection of mostly cheapie nailpolishes.
Then my eczema moved to my hands, and painting my nails soon resulted in serious itching and irritation on my nailbeds. After a while I figured I'd better stop. I eventually gave my polish collection away to a friend.
At the start of this year I decided I wanted to learn makeup. Mineral makeup these days smells much nicer and is a lot less irritating. I'm not sure what I had Googled, maybe "Non-irritating nailpolish", but whatever it was, one of the hits was a site called Picture Polish. I leaped in and bought 8 bottles first time, lucky when I tried them, they didn't cause my fingers to itch like mad. I guess you could call the rest history.
If you buy nailpolish you may be familiar with the term "3 free", which seems to be popping up and more and more. As technology improves, nailpolish no longer needs some of the nastiest chemicals in it. The 3 which are used less and less nowadays are toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate. It seems that 3-free nailpolish is fine for me to use.
One interesting thing is that I can now sniff out polishes that I probably shouldn't use. These are often older polishes that friends have passed on to me, or some cheaper brands. If I smell that distinct smell then check the label, I'll often find toluene or phthalates among the ingredients.
I've now had my nails pretty much constantly painted since March, and they are in pretty good nick! Next up I'll do a post on basic nail art techniques. I've learned A LOT on YouTube and nail blogs, and nail art seems to be one of those things that clicks with me, even though I often say I'm as creative a brick, I can always think of something to do with my nails (often too many things - then I have a tough time deciding!)
I've always liked nailpolish. It was colour I put on myself, and it didn't feel gross like makeup on my face did. I had a decent collection of mostly cheapie nailpolishes.
Then my eczema moved to my hands, and painting my nails soon resulted in serious itching and irritation on my nailbeds. After a while I figured I'd better stop. I eventually gave my polish collection away to a friend.
At the start of this year I decided I wanted to learn makeup. Mineral makeup these days smells much nicer and is a lot less irritating. I'm not sure what I had Googled, maybe "Non-irritating nailpolish", but whatever it was, one of the hits was a site called Picture Polish. I leaped in and bought 8 bottles first time, lucky when I tried them, they didn't cause my fingers to itch like mad. I guess you could call the rest history.
If you buy nailpolish you may be familiar with the term "3 free", which seems to be popping up and more and more. As technology improves, nailpolish no longer needs some of the nastiest chemicals in it. The 3 which are used less and less nowadays are toluene, formaldehyde and dibutyl phthalate. It seems that 3-free nailpolish is fine for me to use.
One interesting thing is that I can now sniff out polishes that I probably shouldn't use. These are often older polishes that friends have passed on to me, or some cheaper brands. If I smell that distinct smell then check the label, I'll often find toluene or phthalates among the ingredients.
I've now had my nails pretty much constantly painted since March, and they are in pretty good nick! Next up I'll do a post on basic nail art techniques. I've learned A LOT on YouTube and nail blogs, and nail art seems to be one of those things that clicks with me, even though I often say I'm as creative a brick, I can always think of something to do with my nails (often too many things - then I have a tough time deciding!)
