Pure Nail Oil™ Tips and Tricks (and challenge reminder!)

Nothing to Disclose


Hello lovelies! Happy Wednesday!

Last night my little one was having a rough and needy night, so I wasn't able to polish. Instead, I decided to go naked for a night, since I'm gearing up for my own Get Naked 3 Day Hydration challenge (waiting on a friend to get her Pure). I had mentioned last week that I would post some tips and tricks to get the most out of your Pure Nail Oil™, and what better time than now?

First of all, if you haven't joined in the challenge, please head over to the original Get Naked Challenge Post and check out all the info there. There is a prize involved: 1 winner from the challenge entries will be chosen at random to receive a Pure Nail Oil Starter Kit ($22 value!). Right now the odds of winning are excellent, so come on and join in! The sale is, unfortunately, over, however you can still grab Pure™ at the regular price. Links are in the original Get Naked Challenge post.

Okay, so you've ordered your Pure Nail Oil™ Kit - now what?

As you all know, the first 3 days are the initial hydration treatment, which requires that you "go naked" for all 3 days. I know, I know....going naked is hard for us polish addicts, but happy nails are healthy nails, and to get healthy nails, they need to be hydrated. Nothing can truly penetrate all those layers of polish, and as we now know, Jojoba based oils are the only oils that can actually penetrate the nail plate. There are other Jojoba based oils out there, but Pure™ has the highest concentration of Jojoba on the market. You've all seen what it did for me 2 months ago - Pure™ literally saved my nails and cuticles (you can check out my latest results update here).

So how does the initial hydration treatment work?

First, like I mentioned above, you must get naked. Take that polish off and get ready to start on your way to healthy, happy, beautiful nails and cuticles.

Pure Nail Oil comes with a Pure Nail Oil™ Pen and either a glass polish style bottle with brush, or a plastic dropper bottle full of oil. Although you can use Pure™ any way you like, the Pen is intended to be the actual method of delivery. Not only is it convenient to carry with you, but the click style twist barrel ensures that you get the correct amount of oil (it's very easy to overdo it). So use that pen!

For the first application, you'll need to "prime" your pen. Just twist the barrel until you see the oil start to come into the bristles. You don't need to saturate them until they're dripping, so don't click until there's oil pouring from the bristles.

Once you have a small amount of oil in the bristles, brush the oil over your cuticles, sidewalls, and bare nail (don't forget to get the undersides of your nails!). You only really need 1-2 clicks per nail (depending on how dry your skin and nails are, size, etc), so there is no need to add another click until you don't see any of that oil sheen on your skin/nails. I use 2 clicks for 2 nails, then repeat until all 10 nails are done. I will be honest, I do need an additional click every now and again since I have callouses from writing on one finger, and my thumbnail on my right hand seems to suck up oil like there's no tomorrow, but that's it - just one extra click. Your skin can only soak up so much at one time, and if you'r slathering oil on your nails and cuticles, all that extra is just being rubbed away by anything you touch as opposed to soaking into your skin.

I know, it seems like such a small amount wouldn't do much, right? Wrong! That tiny amount of oil works wonders. Pure™ aborbs into the skin very fast, and since it's molecularly similar to our own natural oil (sebum), it works fast and effectively.

After you're all oiled up, just massage to the oil (gently!) into your nails and cuticles. You don't need to push your cuticles back, just rub that oil in. At first it may seem like there isn't much to rub in at all, but that's because your nails and skin will absorb the oil lightning fast at first.

Over the next hour or so, rub the oil into your nails and skin (down to the first knuckle) until they no longer feel oily (Pure feels kind of like a dry oil, so they won't actually feel oily in the traditional sense. You'll know what it feels like when it's all absorbed!). This can take anywhere from 40 minutes to a few hours, depending on how dry your nails are. Once you feel no oil left on your nails, go ahead and re-apply, and repeat for 3 days. For the first day, you'll be re-applying ALOT. I was using my Pure™ pen about every 45 minutes for the first 36 hours or so! By the time I reached day 3 though, I was at about 3 hours between applications. Keep in mind that I was an extreme case, and you will more than likely need alot less oil than I did. :)

Using this method, you'll start seeing results within 24 hours. My cuticles were torn to shreds and my nails were so dry that they curled inward drastically. Within 24 hours I was seeing tons of improvement in both. I know, it sounds to good to be true, and I was skeptical at first as well. But Pure™ works. I call it my miracle in a bottle.

Okay, so that's the initial 3 Day Hydration Treatment in a nutshell. Now let's check out some tips and tricks to get the most from it!

1. I cannot say this enough - do not slather!! We're all conditioned to slather our balms and oils as much as possible to get the best results, and that's just not how Pure™ works. Even if it seems like it's not enough to do anything, use the 1-2 clicks ONLY. You'll be re-applying often, so no need to worry about not using enough, and using more and oiling less frequently does not give the same results. You'll just end up wasting alot of oil.

2. Use the pen! This is the best application method for controlling the amount of oil you use. It's not just for travel - Ana intended the pen to be the method of delivery for Pure™. If you use the polish style bottle, I guarantee you'll end up with way too much oil and feel totally greased up. The dropper bottle is much more controlled, but even one drop is too much for just one nail. The pen is the most reliable method for controlling the amount of oil. Use it!

3. Avoid water and soap as much as possible. i'm not saying stop washing your hands and bathing, but try not to wash your hands too often. Soap and water will wash away those previous oils, so you're going to want to keep it to a minimum. I was a compulsive handwasher so this was incredibly hard for me.  My OCD really acts up if I get the slightest amount of anything undesirable on my hands. I had to learn to just rinse them unless they really needed to be washed with soap, and then I would try to wash just my palms if I could. I also carried baby wipes for those times when I just needed to wipe something off. When you do wash your hands, shower, or bathe, make sure to apply your Pure™ afterwards. The oils in Pure™ are also antibacterial and antimicrobial, so you don't need to use harsh antibacterial soaps, hand sanitizers, etc. We're all conditioned to be afraid of those bad germies, but pure will help kill all of those off anyway, so why dry out your skin and nails?

4. If you're going to be doing dishes, cleaning, etc - use gloves! I cannot stress this enough. Even without Pure™ you want to protect your skin and nails from cleansers and exposure to water, right? SO use those gloves! I know they're sometimes cumbersome and irritating, but your skin and nails will thank you later.

5. If you're going to be using your hands a lot and don't need to wear gloves (working, picking up/touching a lot), grab something with beeswax and add a thin later to your cuticles. I use straight beeswax when I'm working or doing things like sorting laundry. It helps to seal in that moisture and keep the oil on your skin. It also repels water a bit, which is always helpful if you're going to be getting just a touch wet.  It's a neat little trick, and works incredibly well.

6. Don't forget the undersides of your free edge! You lose moisture through the undersides of your nails as well, so you want to add some oil there to replace some of that moisture loss. Just like with the top sides of your nails, a little bit will do.

7. Keep a Pure Nail Oil™ Pen in places that you frequent. I keep one on my polish table, one on my bedside table, one in my purse and one in my bathroom drawer. That way I'm never far from my oil when I need it.

8. After the initial 3 day hydration treatment, you'll be dropping down to a minimum of twice daily application. I recommend morning and night at the very least, but I use mine a bit more. I always oil up after I've removed a manicure - waiting a good 2-3 hours before starting a new one so that the oil can do it's job. If I'm swatching, I still oil in between polishes and wait 15-20 minutes so that I can replace some of the moisture I've lost due to acetone, etc. Before polishing, use isopropyl alcohol to remove dirt and surface oil from the nail as opposed to acetone or soap and water. The alcohol will remove only the surface oils instead of drying out the entire nail and cuticle area.

9. Don't be afraid to moisturize those hands! At first, I was afraid that my lotions/creams would interfere with Pure™ somehow, so I waited 15-20 minutes after oiling up to use them. Now I use pure, organic, virgin coconut oil on my hands and have found that I don't have to wait long at all after applying my oil. I do concentrate the oil on my hands and the lower half of my fingers though!

10. At some point you'll need to refill your Pure Nail Oil™ pen. And you should refill them - don't throw them away! They can be pesky to open up, but with practice it gets easier. Just pop off the cap, grasp both ends of the barrel and pull. It takes some effort, but it will pop open. Next, you pull out the plunger mechanism (the white stem with the clear piece at the end) from the bottom half of the barrel and wind it back down. Just turn the larger white piece until it sits against the clear piece at the bottom. Then replace the white piece within the bottom barrel, making sure the teeth line up with the teeth on the barrel.  Fill your pen with Pure Nail Oil™ (I fill mine to the bottom of the little flower on the old label and to the bottom of the "B" on the new label) and insert the bottom barrel into the top barrel and push. Voila! You're done!

11. After refilling your Pure Nail Oil™ Pen, you'll need to re-prime it. You'll more than likely see an air bubble in the barrel, and you want to get rid of that or you won't get much oil coming out with each click. I hold my pen straight up so that the air bubble is centered, and twist the barrel until I see some oil coming from the bristles. I always stop and use that oil - don't waste it! If the air bubble is still there, I repeat this process until it's gone. I usually end up with a good amount of oil on my nails and cuticles, so I massage that in, all the way down my fingers and hands. Like I said, don't waste it! Put it to good use!

12. Once a week or so, I go naked for 18-24 hours and use the initial hydration treatment guidelines to keep my nails and cuticles happy and hydrated. Since I change my polish A LOT, my nails and skin takes a beating. All that acetone from polish removal and clean up really takes it toll. Since I'm prone to dry skin and nails, going naked for a day really helps keep them happy and healthy. Keep in mind this isn't a requirement, but it helps in maintaining your nails and cuticles.

That's it! Really simple, right? Even if you just follow the 3 day hydration treatment guidelines and use Pure™ twice daily, you'll still see amazing results. My cuticles are all healed up, my nails are healthier and stronger than ever! I still get breaks, but now they're from my own silliness as opposed to just accidentally whacking them on random objects. In fact, if I would stop getting impatient and using them to pry things off/open, I wouldn't have had a break since I started using Pure (obviously not counting the crack in my index nail that I had from when I got rid of my stilettos - that was filing the sidewalls in). As a bonus, the skin on my fingers look healthier and younger. Maximum payoff for minimal effort, I tell ya!

I hope this was helpful in some way. I actually tried to make a video of all of this, but since I'm naturally camera shy I couldn't manage to pull it off. In fact, I couldn't even keep my hands in frame (I talk with my hands)!

If you have yet to join in the Get Naked Challenge, head on over the the Get Naked Post and check out how to enter.

I'll be back tomorrow with some more Luscious Potion for you. I also have more from Fandom Cosmetics, Shimmer Polish, Polish TBH, and Love, Angeline coming up, so be sure to check back!

Thanks for stopping by and happy Naked Nails!
-Kimber


Nothing to Disclose

Bliss Kiss Pure Nail Oil™ Update (and why you should join the Get Naked Challenge!)!

Nothing to Disclose

*Product(s) Featured purchased by KLK. Please see Disclaimer/Legal Page for more information** 

I mentioned in today's post about the Get Naked Challenge that I was planning on posting an update on my own progress with Pure Nail Oil™, as well as some simple tricks on how to get the most out of your Pure Nail Oil, so here I am! This post is solely my results with Pure™- I'll be covering how I get the most out of my Pure Nail Oil™ in the next post. It's like a trilogy over here today!

It's been a good 2 months since I started using Pure Nail Oil™, and I'm still just as impressed as I was after the initial 3 day hydration treatment. I'm sure you all remember the initial reveal - How could anyone forget what I had been hiding underneath all that harsh lighting, photo filters and creative angles?

If you're just tuning into this saga, let me explain where I was when, out of desperation, I ordered my first Pure Nail Oil™ Kit.

I was a nipper. That's right. A serious cuticle nipper. I nipped away at anything and everything that looked like it might stick up, stand out, or post any sort of issue. In fact, I nipped so much that I essentially obliterated my Eponychiums (the small, tight band of skin at the base of the nail - most people refer to this as the cuticle, however it is not the true cuticle), and created a fairly bad infection. In fact, I'm still dealing with the fallout from the infection - I have some severe damage to the nail bed on a couple of nails that will take another 3-4 months to grow out. Yup, I was that bad. I could tell you about it all day, but nothing tells the story like photos, right?

Let's look at my left hand - which was my *good* hand. This hand wasn't all that bad (says who!), so I didn't bother with the ultra bright lighting, creative shadows and filters. I just hid behind my phone. You can still see how nasty and torn up my cuticles are though! The first picture was taken before I used my first drop of Pure Nail Oil™. The after photo? Well, that was taken this morning. Neither photo has been altered (save for watermarking). Feel free to do the click to enlarge thang!

Big difference! Now I know these appear to be results that I achieved in 7-8 weeks, but I was seeing dramatic improvement in less than 36 hours. You can take a peek at my original results post here, and you'll see that you don't have to wait weeks to see results. Be sure to check out the macro shot of my ring and pinky nails on my right hand. ;)

Now, my right hand. Oh what a disaster this baby was! If my left hand was scary, then my right hand was downright terrifying. What's worse, was that I was swatching on that hand since my left hand was so short, so I had to be very creative in order to hide all that damage. The "before" photo here is actually unaltered, but still uses that bright light to wash out the redness and swelling. Normally I would have used a skin smoothing camera setting on top of my lighting, as well as focusing only on the nails to blur out the cuticle area. If that didn't work, then I'd use more filters. It took a very long time to create a photo that didn't show just how horrible my cuticles were. In fact, this hand was so bad that my doctor told me that it would take 3-6 months to even begin healing well enough to have actual eponychiums.

Now *that* is a serious difference (Save for the spot on my ring finger where I stabbed myself with a sewing needle, but hey, accidents happen!)! At first glance it may seem as though I still don't have eponychiums, but that isn't the case. They're just small and tight as opposed to nipped to oblivion. When they first grew back, they were actually rather large, but I think this was due to the fact that they were nipped so far back that they were growing in at different stages all the way across. Once they were grown in completely, they started "shrinking back" into what you see now. I think this is where the myth that once you cut your eponychiums they will grow back larger and thicker comes from! 

Obviously I still have a lot of damage to the actual nail on my ring and pinky fingers- that's where nipping and resulting infection destroyed most of the nail plate. I'm actually lucky to have those nails at all. Oddly enough, Pure™ has helped a ton with that damage- those spots, although indented, are actually smooth to the touch (I don't buff them either!) and do not peel away. 

I also want to point out that my skin, all the way from my fingertips to the back of my hands, looks smoother and healthier. Before I started using Pure™ my hands looked much older...lots of wrinkles, some dark spots, blotchy uneven skin. Now they look much younger and healthier! I still have an odd skin tone - it's just genetics - but my hands have never looked better!

Again, you can check out my original results post (with daily pictures from the first 7 days) here. It honestly does not take weeks to see amazing results - this is just where I'm at now. 

"But Kimber," you ask, "Isn't any nail/cuticle oil just as good?'. The answer is a resounding NO! Before I discovered Pure Nail Oil™, I tried almost every product imaginable. I tried Avoplex, Solar Oil, Burt's Bees, Lemony Flutter, Almond Oil, Shea Butter, various lotions, balms, and creams...all to no avail. Sure, they *masked* the problem a bit, but my nails and cuticles were never any healthier, and were still incredibly dry and scaly. My nipping was a result of this dryness, as well as untamable cuticle (true cuticle - the white, flaky stuff that attaches to the actual nail over the Matrix) growth. Once I started nipping, no product was able to help my skin heal. It was a vicious cycle. It was embarrassing and I felt hopeless. 

I know I sound like Ron Popeil (although I prefer Vince The Sham-Wow Guy) here, but the bottom line is Pure Nail Oil™ works. Within 24 hours of my first application, I was showing improvement. At 3 days my nails and cuticles were drastically improved. At 7 days, I was almost entirely healed. For skin that should've taken months to heal, that is beyond impressive. 

"Okay Kimber, why is Pure™ better than any other oil?"

The answer is Jojoba Oil. Jojoba Oil is the only oil that can penetrate the nail plate (and obviously it does a fantastic job with our skin too!). It is molecularly similar to sebum, our natural body oil, which means that it is literally the closest thing to sebum. Ana has a fabulous article about why and how Jojoba Oil works here. 

"Okay, that's pretty cool, Kimber. But my current product works just fine. Why should I try Pure™ if I'm okay with what I have?"

My honest opinion here is that we could all benefit from healthier skin. In the case of our cuticles, Healthy skin is tantamount to preventing infection, and as you've seen in my pictures, healthy nails. Your current product may seem to be doing a great job, but what happens when you wash your hands? Does your skin go back to feeling tight, looking a little ashy and dry? Do your cuticles look dry? Scaly? Itchy?

I also want to ask you this: Does your current product moisturize your nails? And I mean truly moisturize, as in hydrates your nails. If you're not using a Jojoba based oil, the answer is simply...No. Before I started using Pure™, my nails were so dry that they would literally curve inwards, almost to a complete circle (when they were long enough). I would slather on oils and balms, and that would help for about 20 minutes, but as soon as it evaporated or rubbed off? My nails were right back to that scary dryness. I used hydrating base coats, slept with vaseline and gloves on my hands, you name it...I tried it. And although some things masked the problem....nothing ever truly helped. Since Pure Nail Oil™ contains Jojoba Oil as it's main ingredient, it actually hydrates the nail. And not just temporarily - they stay hydrated. 

One of the biggest myths out there is that strong nails are HARD nails - that just isn't true. Healthy, strong nails are actually a mix of strength *and* flexibility, and if your nails are dry, they aren't flexible. How many times have we whacked a nail against a countertop or something and had it just snap off like a dry twig? I've had that happen more times than I can count, and my nails sure seemed strong..they were hard, that's for sure. 

Healthy nails are a perfect blend of 18% oil and 5% water (source: Ana @ NailCareHQ.com/Doug Schoon), and in order to really hydrate your nails you need to replace what you lose. Water is simple enough - just washing your hands and gently scrubbing with a nail brush will do that. But what about the oil? How do you replace Sebum? With an oil that is similar to Sebum, and the only one around is Jojoba Oil. You see where I'm headed here, but here's another article from Ana that explains the balance between oil and water in your nails and why Jojoba is so important (and amazing!) when it comes to hydrating your nails. This article also shows more results after using Pure™!

Here's the bottom line, lovelies.....Pure Nail Oil™ works. I see so many of us talking about dry cuticles and nails every day, and this oil is the solution - no joke. No smoke and mirrors, no bull. It's the real deal. Here's one more article that I believe speaks volumes about what Pure™ does - this is Sue's story, all the way from day 1 to 5 months later. It's a great read, and a fabulous example of the magic that is Pure Nail Oil™.

Phew! That was a lot to take in, right? Thanks for hanging in there with me!

Now, who's ready to get naked with me!?! Head on over to the Get Naked Challenge Post for all the info!

Stay tuned - Up next I'll be sharing some tips on how to use Pure Nail Oil™,  including how to avoid mangling your pen at refill time! :)

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Nail Nudity!

-Kimber

*Product(s) Featured purchased by KLK. Please see Disclaimer/Legal Page for more information** Nothing to Disclose