For a special night out, liven up your nails with these glamorous party looks and you’re sure to stand out from the crowd.

Mix And Match

For this look use a french manicure technique with colours. You can use any colours you like, for instance coat the nail in pale pink and apply fuchsia or purple to the tip, or try red nails tipped in black. For the ultimate in drama, tip shiny purple nails with glittery silver polish.

Crazy Nails

Paint nails in a pale shade, then, using a fine liquid eyeliner brush, paint on five dots in a deeper colour in the shape of a flower. You can experiment with other shapes too.Try drawing on a star or multicoloured strips running diagonally across your nail.

Nail Jewels

Create a subtle party shimmer using delicate gems. Polish your little fingernail well and add diamantc or rhinestones. It can sometimes be a little tricky to place them exactly where you want them without smudging your polish. Using a toothpick gives you more control.

Glitter nails

For the ultimate shimmer, press still-wet in pale shimmery shades in glitter -or just line the tip with glitter as it dries. Once everything has dried, brush off any loose particles. Then seal with clear varnish.

Tagged Under:fingernail, french manicure, fuchsia, hand and feet care, liquid eyeliner, paint nails, pale shade rhinestones

If details make. The difference then knowing how to look after your hands and feet is a vital part of the beauty experience. Neat, manicured nails and feet that look silky soft rather than dry and cracked are the finishing touch to all the rest of your grooming. Most of us, however, neglect these areas, thinking we don’t have time to paint our nails - and that our feet are just too much like hard work. This doesn’t have to be the case. With simple regimes designed to make the most of these areas, you really can be beautiful from head to toe. After all, onaverage your nails grow just ove 1/3 inch a month. Start and you can have inch-long talons in to time.

Treatment For Your Nails

Fed up with spending time on your nails only for them to snap minutes after your manicure) well. if the products you’re using aren’t right for your nail type, you could actually be killing your nails with kindness. Truth is, just like skin and hair, nails come in types- five, in fact. Nails can be dry, brittle, damaged. soft or normal, and they need to be treated accordingly. Here’s how to diagnose your particular nail type - and how to treat it properly.

Dry Nails

Dry nails lack lustre and look dull: plus, if you run your thumb over the nail, it will drag slightly instead of sliding cleanly across. The secret to treating dry nails is to rehydrate them vitamin E is fantastic for this (just like it is on dry skin) so open a vitamin capsule and rub it directly onto the nails morning and evening. It’ll also help if you always wear a moisturizing base coat to hydrate the nails twenty-four/seven and prevent further drying by switching from soap to hand washes. Finally, steer clear of pearlized polish. The ingredients used to make them sparkly can be dehydrating.

Brittle Nails

Gently press the sides of your nails together. If your nail doesn’t bend. chances are you have brittle nails. These have no moisture left in them at all, which also means they have no flexibility and shatter as soon as they bash on something. This causes most people to reach for the nail hardener, but this is the worst thing you can do as it makes the nail even more rigid. It’s better to boost flexibility by oiling the nails nightly with almond oil instead. The shape of your nails will also add strength. The best is a squoval shape (where the sides of the nail are left straight and only the top is rounded), as this helps the nail absorb shocks better.

Damaged Nails

If your nails are fiaking or splitting, you have damaged nails. These are most commonly caused by severe dehydration. Help them with a treatment base coat to heal the nail, but make sure that, as you apply it, you stipple it into any fiaky spots (just like you would cover peeling paint).This will prevent air bubbles forming under the polish and stop flaking - which is important, as fiaking polish takes nail cells with it, increasing damage. You also need to ensure that the cells that grow through next time are strong and healthy, so use cuticle oil twice dally; if the cuticle is supple, the new cells can push through more easily, so they arrive at the nail bed in the best of health.

Soft Nails

If your nails bend at the slightest touch and rarely grow past your fingertip you’ve got soft nails. To get them back into shape, you need to harden them up. The simple way to do this is to apply a nail hardener or try rubbing in a little essential oil of elemi (order this at health food stores), in fact, any oil will help strengthen soft nails as it keeps out their main enemy, water, which softens them even further. Always wear gloves when you’re washing up and apply hand cream after washing your hands.

Normal Nails

If you have none of the above problems - your nails bend slightly when pressed, look pink and shiny and will grow easily - you’re lucky, you naturally have normal nails, Try to keep them that way by moisturizing them regularly with hand creams, and avoiding harsh detergents and overly hot water.

Tagged Under:brittle nails, dry skin, hair nails, hand and feet care, hands and feet, manicured nails, moisturizing talons

Top 5 Tips For Feet

• If you haven’t treated your feet for a while, just this once go to a chiropodist and get your feet spoilt for a session. And it has to be a chiropodist - a pedicurist will pretty things up, but they won’t do the mega-makeover your forgotten feet probably need right now.
• Once your feet have been treated by the chiropodist, don’t wait for them to revert to their previous state before you deal with them again. You feet will now be at their best, so work on maintaining that perfection.
• Before every bath or shower, spend two or three minutes whisking over your feet with a foot file or pumice to remove dead skin. In a pedicure you do this after you’ve soaked, but day to day it’s better done before your bath as water hydrates the dry skin and you won’t always see which areas need to be tackled.
• Give yourself a major pedicure once a month to keep nails under control.
• Treat any unusual problems quickly. While you may not like to think about it feet do get some nasties on them - and pretty quickly too. So if you get corns, verrucas or fungal infections, sort them out as soon as you notice them. That way they’ll go more quickly and nothing evil (like lost toenails) will occur.

Treatment For Your Feet

Treat your feet with this homemade foot bath, which will soothe aching limbs and speed up circulation:

• Boiling Water
• Green Tea (loose or bags)
• Peppermint Oil

Fill a bowl full of boiling water. Add five green tea bags - or two scoops of flaked green tea - and three drops of peppermint oil. Wait five minutes and check the water has cooled enough to put your feet in (if it hasn’t, add some cool water). Soak your feet for five minutes. Get out, pat them dry and apply foot cream or body lotion.

Tagged Under:aching limbs, dead skin, dry skin, foot bath, foot cream, fungal infections, hand and feet care, pedicure pumice

Top 5 Tips For Nails

• Always wipe nails with a cloth before painting. Any oils left on the nail will prevent polish from sticking and increase the risk of chipping.
• If a nail chips, the best thing to do is remove the polish and start again. If you don’t have time, dip your finger in nail polish remover and smooth it over the chipped area to soften the edges. Now, repaint that area and then cover with top coat to reseal the nail.
• If you smudge polish while it’s drying, dab your fingertip in remover and use it to smooth the surface, then repaint with top coat.
• If nails break, the only thing you can do is cut them off. If, however the break is low down, take a teabag and cut a tiny strip of the gauze. Apply this to the nail and paint over with polish.
• Don’t apply nail polish remover to gunky nail varnish, as it will dry out the nail. Instead, use specialist thinners that are available from beauty stores.

Top 5 Colour Tricks For Nails

• Dark colours make nails look shorter, beat this by leaving a white strip on the side of the nail as you paint.
• Small nails look bigger if you use shimmery or metallic polishes.
• Pale colours are best for girls in a hurry. They show fewer mistakes and chips are more easily disguised.
• To make unpainted or- natural nails look longer run a white nail pencil under the tip.
• Bluey red nail polishes can make mature hands look older. Stick to vibrant reds or paler shades.

Treatment For Your Hand

Like the skin on your face, hand skin sometimes needs a little extra help.To brighten up dull hands you need to exfoliate. Make a rich exfoliating hand paste by mixing together the following ingredients:

• 2 tsp sugar
• 1 tbsp honey

Rub the honey paste over your hands and nails to remove dead skin cells. Rinse off, then moisturize.

Treatment For Your Nails

Warm a little olive oil in a pan over the stove. This should be only slightly hot, do not boil it and test it carefully before you use it. Now soak your hands and nails. In the mixture for two to three minutes. Wipe off the excess, apply gloves and sit tight for an hour (it’s even better if you do this overnight).

Tagged Under:beauty stores, finger nails, hand and feet care, hand skin, nail polish remover, nail varnish, nails, nails care natural nails

If you decide to treat your feet at home, this simple pedicure will remove dead skin and give tired feet a new zest for life.

1. Sock your feet in warm water. For a little bit of extra pep add some bicarbonate of soda or a few green tea bags.

2. Use a salt- or sugar-based body scrub to remove any surface dead skin. Tackle any severe dead skin with a pumice, foot file or electric sander (depending on how bad the problem is), gently removing any thickened, hard or cracked skin.

3. Trim your nails. This should be done with clippers only and you should only ever cut straight across. Shaping toenails can lead to ingrowing nails, which can be very painful. Now apply a rich foot cream containing urea to your feet and nails. If you pop on some socks, go to bed paint your nails in the morning. Alternatively, if you’re in a rush, after two to three minutes,rub over the nails with a flannel or the edge of a towel. This prepares your nails for painting, but will also help remove any excess cuticles.
4. Paint the toenails. Toe separators will help you avoid polish smudging from one toe to the next. If you don’t want to buy toe separators, use tissuse pushed between the toes to keep them apart-this is better than cotton wool, which can shed fibres. Paint toenails as you do fingers, with two or three thin coats applied in long strokes. And, as always, don’t forget the base coat.

Pedicure Tips

If you think your feet are simply beyond help, indulge in a paraffin wax at a spa. This popular treatment involves painting your feet with warm wax and wrapping them up to help them absorb moisture. The end result is perfectly smooth,soft skin.

Tagged Under:body scrub, cracked skin, dead skin, foot cream, hand and feet care, ingrowing nails, paint your nails, paraffin wax, pedicure, smooth soft skin, toe separators toenails