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Oh God, this has happened to me more often than I care to remember. My nails will be behaving themselves really well, all growing beautifully in anticipation of an Evint/night on the tear/day of looking at my fingers on the keyboard in work. Next thing you know, I’ll either break the tip nearly clean off of one by misjudging how far my hand is from the door that’s swinging back at me, or notice the beginnings of a tear or split.
And these things always seems to happen mere seconds after I’ve admired their progress, which is pure cruel altogether.
So for anyone who’s like me and loathes the thoughts of having to file the other nails down to matching stumps after they did all that growing, here’s how to make the best of that awful situation.
- Cut a strip of tea bag paper (yes, seriously) to size – you need it large enough to cover the break and wrap back under the tip of your nail. Perforate it a couple of times using a needle or the top of a safety pin or whatever you have handy. This will help to stop air bubbles from forming.
- Apply a small amount of Super Glue or nail glue directly to the break. Or, if you’re like me and using either of those means you’ll just end up sticking all your fingertips together, apply a clear top coat all over the entire nail.
- Saturate the strip of tea bag paper with your mending liquid of choice. Then apply the strip to the break and tuck the end of it under your nail tip.
- Allow to dry before applying a base coat to help blend the repaired tip with the rest of the nail. If possible, allow to dry overnight before lashing on the nail varnish to avoid your it going all bubbly. And if you choose an opaque colour, it’ll pretty much completely disguise where you carried out your emergency nail repair.
One small caveat: it’s not a good idea to be using Super Glue on your nails willy nilly as it can weaken the surface of the nail plate. However, applied judiciously and with care, it can be a total life saver when you really, really need a perfect ten!
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can you see the teabag after??
A teabag you say?! My nails are hopeless. It’s my own fault, when I type I use the sides of my thumb to hit the spacebar – which I suppose is whacking my nail every time. Then they break about a third of the way down and it’s a disaster trying to stop it snagging until it grows enough to cut it into a weird shape. Maybe I should just wear thimbles or elastic bands for typing?
Back in the good old days, M&S used to have nail repair kits. These included nail glue, the tea bag type material (very fine silky stuff), a buffer to tidy up the repair job, and a sheet of nail plasters.
The plasters were tiny ovals of clear plastic with a sticky side so you could whack them over any break and they’d stop it from catching till you got home and glued things back together again.
I still have a few plasters left and keep them in my purse all the time. They are life savers. I haven’t seen the kit in M&S for years now.
Admin, you can’t really see the tea bag after unless you’ve just used clear varnish over it and are looking very veeerrrry closely. If you use a nice coloured-y varnish you can’t see it at all at all!
Shin, that is exactly what happens me too. Like you, I’ve thought about using those little rubber-y finger cone things but then – might people think we had a wierd fingertip fungus or something?
That cheapo costmestic brand Essence do those little clear plasters. They are not a million miles away from sellotape mind…
afternoon beauts,
I “borrowed” my BFs creditcard and purchased elasticiser from HQHAIR bout 12 days ago and no sign of it arriving yet. Any ideas how long they normally take with deliveries??
Skipping girl, anytime I’ve ordered from them it’s only been a couple of days for delivery – might be worth an e-mail to customer service to check the status of your order.
I wish I had read this yesterday – two of my stupid nails broke so I have two stumpy mcstumpersons and 8 elegant ones!
All of my nails were behaving so well for the last few moths and all of a sudden, all of them split… boo! have filed them all down (with glass LD file) and starting all over again!
Aw girlies that terrible!
Great post Lynnie, I’m going to try this one out pronto!