Winter is coming...

This is a sponsored post.  All opinions and thoughts are my own!

It's getting to be that time of year.  Starbucks has released their for-some-reason-controversial Holiday Cups, early birds are putting up their Christmas trees, and the weather is beginning to go from blissfully crisp to a bit chilly.  Pretty soon it will be downright cold every day!  The cold weather is absolutely brutal on the nails.  The other day, I noticed that I had deep cracks in three of my nails.  One of them, of COURSE on my left pinky which simply cannot stay long these past few months, broke off clean across.  I decided to cut all 10 nails down a bit to be on the safe side, knowing that the weather is getting harsh for my nails.

I know, they're still considered long by most people's standards. 

But I liked how much longer they were before! :(

The #1 most important line of defense for your nails this time of year, in my opinion, is keeping your nails healthy and strong.  That's where Groupon comes in!  Groupon has tons of coupon offers for dozens of companies, including several for the Vitamin Shoppe.  Keeping your body healthy and strong year-round is always important, but right now, your nails can probably use a bit of a boost.  That's why I take Biotin!  I really like the Natrol dissolvables, which are a powerful 10,000 mcg of Biotin and taste like a Smartie candy. :D  With the deals listed on Groupon, you can save a lot on all types of vitamins.  If you're not already taking a Biotin supplement (I take it year-round for maximum nail health), I highly recommend that you start taking it now!

Another great distributor that Groupon offers coupons and sales with is Overstock.com (link is to the Groupon coupons, not Overstock itself).  Did you know that overstock.com stocks nail polish and nail art tools?!  They stock Essie, Sinful Colors, striping polishes and brushes, nail care tool kits, nail wraps, UV lamps...  and right now is a GREAT time to shop because of pre-Black Friday deals.  I kinda hate the whole concept of Black Friday (can we at least NOT have it the day after we're supposed to be thankful for what we have? and why are there so many pre-sales all month long? doesn't that defeat the purpose of Black FRIDAY, which is only one day?), but I am a huge sucker for a great sale, so, yeah.  If you're looking to buy holiday gifts for the polish lover in your life, or treat yourself during this time of year, definitely check out overstock.com, and head to the Groupon coupons to see what you can save!

Do you use Groupon coupons when you shop?  What are your favorite types of coupons to shop with?  Let me know in the comments!

The Sad Tale of the Broken Nail

Three weeks ago, I got some clothes in the mail.  It was a big surprise because the tracking info had only been updated as far as "shipped," with my expected delivery date about a week later than when it actually came!  And these clothes were a warm welcome after a long week of cleaning in preparation for company.

I tried on my new top with one of my older skirts to see how they'd look together.  While attempting to tuck the shirt in, I jammed my left pinky against the shirt and my nail bent backwards so badly that the nail cracked halfway across, a few millimeters below the hyponychium.  Yowch!

Luckily, I'd been wearing a peel-off base coat so I didn't have to put acetone on the fresh wound.  Also luckily, I was done with my chores for the day and had planned on redoing my nails after trying on my clothes, so I had plenty of time to patch up the break!  I used a small piece of tea bag and a few layers of nail glue to hold the two pieces of nail together...

... then I painted my nails as I usually would.  Two layers of base coat, a layer of white, two layers of sponged-on polish for the gradient, and two layers of top coat.  (for better photos of this manicure, see yesterday's post!)

I figured that the tea bag, combined with the many layers of glue and polish, would be enough to last at least until the break grew above the hyponichium.  Nope.  The layers of stuff holding my nail together split while I was digging my clothes out of the dryer the very next night.  I shouldn't have used my left hand for that :(  It was too late at night for me to want to deal with new wet layers, so I put a Band-Aid over my finger to hold everything together while I slept.

By the next afternoon, the polish on the top half of my nail had chipped off, revealing the break in the nail.  The once-neat white line of my hyponichium was now jagged and awkward.

I removed the polish - which luckily didn't hurt, because the wound of my torn skin had healed by then - and decided to use a Jamberry nail wrap to hold it together.  A nail wrap can't split the way polish can, after all, so it should be a good hold!  And Tropical Mirage matched my neon gradient pretty well.

Well, that would have worked, except that I made the mistake of putting some nail glue on my nail before applying the wrap.  Apparently, that prevented my wrap from being able to form a perfect seal on my nail, and after a few days, it started peeling up around the edges.

By the next weekend, which was Memorial Day weekend, the wrap was almost completely lifted off of my nail - except, to its credit, for the part that was directly over the original break in my nail.

I was on vacation with my family in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, that weekend, and I didn't have a bunch of tools with me.  I'd had the foresight to at least pack my nail clippers, file, an orangewood stick, and my base and top coat just in case.  Luckily, I had enough time after breakfast on Saturday to tend to my nail while everyone fought for shower time.  (One of my favorite parts of being a night showerer!)  I pried the wrap off to discover my nail had broken on the other corner, too.  It was hanging on by a thread of skin in the middle, not unlike a loose tooth hanging on by one little root that lets you spin it around in your mouth.

The one bright side was that the newer break had the courtesy to be above my hyponichium, so at least that wasn't a fresh wound or a break that would further ruin the shape of my white line!

So, without the tools or time to try to save the nail again, I chopped it off.

The weirdness on the surface of my nail is just the nail glue that got partially torn up by the Jamberry wrap.  And the small amount of free edge was pretty rough, so I filed it down nice and flat.

And that, my friends, is the end of this sad story.  Every time I looked at my finger for a few days, I felt like someone had chopped it off at the tip!  I don't even know how long it's been since I had absolutely no free edge on my nails.

Until the nail grows out long enough for me to shape it to match the rest of my nails, I'm going to keep it out of photos.  I think it looks really silly in my usual pose, all short and stubby!  Although it's been three weeks since the initial break, I still don't have enough growth to get my pointed round shape.  And I absolutely refuse to cut down the rest of my nails to even closely match this one!

American Advice, Volume 1: The Importance of Wearing Nail Polish

My blog just turned one month old yesterday!   And since the tagline of my blog is "French tips and American advice," I figured it was about time I shared some advice on nail care!  There's a LOT of rambling I can do about nail care, so I'll be rambling about a different aspect of nail care throughout a series of American Advice posts.  Today I'm going to be focusing on ways to keep your nails strong and healthy.

The easiest part of my nail care process is that I take Biotin vitamins every morning with my breakfast.  I buy it in 5000mcg, and I think it's also sold in 1000mcg pills.  Biotin will help your nails (and hair!) to grow faster and stronger, making it much easier to have long nails - and keeping short nails healthier.  (Biotin also helps with digestion of carbohydrates, so if you love bread as much as I do, it can be quite helpful there!)

But it takes close to three months to see the effects of taking Biotin, because that's how long it takes your nails to grow out completely.  (Obviously, this varies based on how long you keep your nails.)  So what do you do while you wait for the Biotin-enhanced nails to grow out, to help prevent your nails from cracking, chipping, peeling, and breaking?

First things first - NEVER go naked.  EVER.  We're often told by various beauty magazines and such that nail polish prevents our nails from "breathing," and that we should spend some time without anything painted on our nails.  This is super untrue!  Our nails need to breathe about as much as our dishes do.  Nail polish actually acts like a shield for our nails.  Nails need their natural oils in order to stay strong and healthy.  Water, as we know, washes away oils, especially if you throw soap into the mix - which I hope you do after you go to the bathroom.  But nail polish can help to slow down the rate of water absorption, because polish isn't as porous as nails! 

Ever notice how after a shower, your nails are sort of bendy?  That's the water absorption.  But shower with nail polish on and your nails won't be quite as bendy afterwards - because the layers of polish helped to keep the water out.  Slowing down water absorption is very important for nail health, because wet nails are super susceptible to cracking, peeling, and breaking.

Now, I know we can't all make sure to have perfect nail polish on our nails at all times - even I can't always have a pretty color or design on my nails, and I don't have a job or a social life.  There are plenty of nail strengtheners on the market that are a simple clear paint, so you can throw it on your nails quickly after removing your previous manicure.  I use Sally Hansen Advanced Hard as Nails.  Other good products include OPI Nail Envy and ORLY's variety of nail strengtheners.  Probably every major nail polish company makes a strengthening base coat of sorts.  If you don't feel like spending the extra dough, I recommend at least using a few coats of your usual base coat polish between manicures.

One thing that still plagues my nails, even after 8 months of taking Biotin, is peeling.  The problem with peeling nails is that once it peels once, the nail is going to tend to peel in the same place continually as the nail continues to grow.  It's sort of like perforated paper: once it rips, it's really easy to keep ripping and sort of hard to stop it ripping.  So how do you stop it?  Well, if anyone knows, please tell me!

But really, it is super hard to stop nails from peeling once they start.  The wrong thing to do, however, is to peel them on purpose.  If you notice a layer of nail trying to peel off, don't encourage it!  The best thing I can say is to keep polish on that baby at all costs.  BUT, don't let that nail polish crack or chip!  Chipped polish can break off a layer of your nail.  Try to keep that bit of peeling nail secured down (with polish or nail glue) until it grows out.

All right, I think that's enough for one post.  For more detailed information about the strength of nail polish, check out this post on Nail Care HQ, and for more details about nail peeling, check out this post.