Nail Care Routine

I've been taking a lot of care of my nails over the past couple of months as I've been trying to grow them out. I have brittle, weak, bendy nails that break very easily.
By following this routine, I've seen such an improvement in the strength and length of my nails.
I'll also show you a couple of ways to easily remove staining from your nails.

I'll start with stain removal, I do this about once a week to get rid of any yellow discolouration on my nails.
You can either do one or both of these depending on how bad the staining is. You can also use a buffing block but that can really weaken your nails.
First of all, get yourself a whitening toothpaste and rub it into your nails for a couple of minutes. Once you're finished, rinse off with water.

Next, add a spoonful of baking soda to a small bowl of water. (I never use exact measurements, just go with whatever looks right to you.) You can add lemon juice to this mix but I feel like citric acid is a little too harsh for my nails.

Next, you need to submerge your nails for 5-10 minutes. I like to rub my nails gently with the baking soda while I wait.

Now, it's time to put some moisture back into our nails. For this, I use sweet almond oil. I use a Q-Tip to apply it but you can clean out an old nail polish bottle and fill it with the oil, then use the brush to apply it. I do this at least once a day but  try to do it up to 3 times a day.
You need to massage this into your cuticles, nail beds and underneath your nails - once they're long enough - until it has been absorbed.
For me, this is the most important step as it keeps your cuticles moisturised and stimulates blood flow to the nail area helping them grow.

Finally, apply your base coat or any nail strengthening treatment as directed. You'll need to wait 30 minutes to an hour while the oil soaks in before doing this or the polish will peel off.

I'm not sure why my nails are showing up so yellow/orange in these pictures because they don't look anything like that in real life...

If you're wondering about filing, trimming and cuticle pushing, I tend not to do any of these until totally necessary. Once every 3 weeks or so. I know that sounds like a long time but my nails really don't grow very fast and my cuticles are always nicely pushed back without me having to help them. I also don't recommend cutting your cuticles.

Let me know if you have any tips for taking care of your nails, especially if you've found something to help with breaking and bending.

I hope you found this post helpful :)
Thanks for reading! ♥