My mother-in-law’s (MIL) nails – MAKEOVER!

Now brace yourselves for what you are about to see.  The following pictures are um… less than pretty.  My MIL is in her late 60’s, diabetic and has arthritis along with other co-morbidities, but let’s not get into that.  Somehow, she found someone at her assisted living facility to paint her nails, without base and top coats.  Let’s accentuate the ridges, shall we?  DIOS MIOS!  If you are looking for nail problems to solve, here is a challenge.  Crackled, chipped, peeling, yellow nails with deep ridges.  I mentioned she’s diabetic, so no clipping!  Not that I really clip anyways but you must be extra gentle with diabetics as they are prone to infection and are slow healers. 

So here is what I did.  I took in a deep breath and went to town. 

First I gathered my supplies while she washed her hands.

Supplies:

·         Revlon stainless steel cuticle pusher

·         Blue cross cuticle remover (Sally’s, $4.99)

·         Regular nail polish remover

·         Nail file 120/120 (Sally's, 99 cents)

·         Nail finishing block (Sally's, 99 cents)

·         Pure Acetone

·         Clean up brush by Debra Lynn (Amazon, $4.99)

·         Seche ridge filling base (CVS, $7.99)

·         Orly’s ingenue, pink shimmer polish (her choice).

·         China Glaze Fast Forward top coat

·         Paper towels

·         Wash cloths

Her nails before:

 Wash Hands, remove polish.

Assess.  Remove cuticles, and dead skin.

 After clean up.  WHEW.  Now file down, wash hands and paint.

Seche generally did a great job of filling in the ridges.  I should have used two coats of Seche on the index finger.  There were three deep ridges on this finger, one of them still showed up.

Middle finger has two coats of Seche base, it had a really deep ridge, that Seche base filled in nicely.
Seche goes on a sheer pearly white, which is acutally kind of pretty all by itself.  It has toulene in it though, so it might not be the best for those of us in child bearing years.  My MIL isn't having children anytime soon, hence she can tolerate Seche ridge filling base.

I apologize for the yellow pictures but, my MIL is not that mobile and I didn't want to haul out the photo light. In the macro mode I can't adjust the white balance setting.  I need a manual DSLR camera!!!

Thoughts?