Natural nails anyone?

[MsMiaWallace]

Anyone else ditched the gels/acrylics & going natural on nails?

I'm recovering nails from acrylic's. I'm trying to hold out & let them recover naturally without gels etc. I am considering Builder Gel but also thinking of money saving!

I used to love having my nails done. They were always strong and healthy. Good toenails too, and I loved bold colour! Sadly in my 50s they just weakened under varnish, so i had to stop. I recently painted my toenails for a holiday and left it on for a few weeks. When i took it off it had dried out and discoloured one nail in particular. Now it's just lots of handcream and weekly trims. Totally bare. I've grown used to it and i do like it, and they are strong and healthy again, but i will always enjoy nail varnish threads!

This is me. Every time I wear nail polish now my nails split and break, I am nearly 61. I think I might just leave them bare but with a clear base coat.

I do though like to paint my toes nails in summer when I mostly wear sandals (don't bother in the winter when my feet are covered up) but like you I always get one toe nail (my big one) formig a white patch that only the podriast can remove. She said it can be varnish staining my nails and she recommeds Dr Remedy polish and says that won't do that as its natural. I might try that for my toes but just leave my fingernails natural as polish chips quickly on fingernails and soon looks messy, though nude colours aren't too bad.

Healthy natural nails are the best. I now do gels once a year for Christmas. The rest of the time I have nothing on except some almond oil.

I'll check out that brand @citygirl1961 !

I was a complete acrylic addict until the first lockdown. I had been for years. Obviously that had to go when the salons were closed, and I never went back.

Saving myself a LOT of money and my nails are much healthier. I just file, buff and use a pale pink polish. I much prefer how they look and feel and don’t know why I didn’t do it years ago! I hate the look of acrylics now.

I ditched my beautiful builder gel nails in August after my natural nail cracked under one (ouch!!) and I decided that it was a bit disingenuous of me to be worrying about my British Gas bill and still casually dropping £50 a month on nails. 😳

I‘be been keeping them super short and they are 2/3 grown out now and it’s completely fine. The first week was bad, though.

Contemplating life without my beloved builder gel but I'm so reluctant to go back to crap, thin nails that are just fundamentally weak and no amount of collagen or almond oil or strengthening polish does anything to improve.

Those of you who can just ditch the polish and have good nails are incredibly lucky. The only reason I use gel is because mine are awful. Without gel they aren't even long enough to paint.

I keep them short as I can't handle long nails, this is over a week's growth already.

I love natural but buffed. I think I've painted my fingernails about three times in my life. Funnily enough I wondered about painting them a couple of weeks ago but as always worried about how I'd do the washing up! Am in my 60s but when I was a teenager other people were obsessed with nail polish. I just never got into it. Shame possibly as they do often look lovely

I've had gel nails for about a year now. Decided to give my nails a break. They are horrendous now. All bar one are splitting in the centre so having to keep cutting and filing them so none are growing much. How do I get past this routine? Applying a nail strengthener but tops of nails are catching on my clothes. They look shocking.

After I ditched the gel polish (which I had back to back for years), mine split and peeled for a good few weeks. They were also quite sore. I just kept filing, using solar oil and lots of lotion. They did get better very slowly, it wasn’t a quick fix.

Coconut oil is a fantastic strengthener and if you use a paintbrush to paint the underside of the nail it makes them clear ✨

I prefer to keep mine natural, as whenever I paint them, they chip so quickly. I buff them, and keep them quite short, this is actually quite long for me.

Loving seeing the natural nails :)

Gel extensions here. Had natural nails for a full year during covid and hated them breaking

I swear by Asda hair skin and nails vitamins £2.50 for a months supply. You have to get on your knees to find them as they are in the very bottom shelf. I used to use menopause vitamins that cost £££ but never seen the improvement I have withe the Asda ones.

My nails break too much. Only have builder and shellac though. Nothing like acrylics or extensions

Was just wondering today if nail salons were still happy to do natural manicures or if they always try to upsell to gel or acrylic nails? I've been looking to book a nail appt. to tidy mine up, but everywhere seems to be all about the USA gel nails with patterns.

Clean and short. No polish, no gel. I used to have gel nails for years and use a lot of different nail polishes and colours. I love gardening now and it's far more important to me to have my nails short than it is looking pretty.

I’ve never had my nails done. I have a pearly beige nail varnish that I wore to a wedding in 2015 and I sometimes use it on my toenails in summer.

Fake stuff looks fake, and usually looks awful. Thick fake (ok, microbladed) brows, or the pointy shapes are hideous, as are thick heavy lashes, pumped up lips, fake tan, long pointy nails, tight injected faces… just why? Everyone can see it’s all false and it looks so silly.

Perhaps my mother was told the same when she curled her hair and used pink lipstick and a powder compact during the war…!