MY MAN'S MANICURE

Last night, after weeks of pestering me to do one on him, I finally got around to giving my Boyfriend a manicure. His is really rough on his hands, his family owns a bricklaying company, so you can imagine what his hands look like on a daily. He was really resistant to my taking pictures for some reason, so I didn't get in as many as I would have liked to, but I got a few.

Let me start out with what items I used:

I forgot to show my little manicure dishes & the "soap" he soaked in, in the pic!

BEFORE:I used two manicure soaking dishes

I added warm water & some foot softening liquid soap (I figured it would work for hands just as well as feet)

After letting his hands soak for about 10 minutes I asked him to keep one in the dish, while I worked on the first hand.

I used my metal cuticle pusher and got to work on those cuticles of his while they were still soft from his soak. Since his were so bad, this took a little bit more work than I had anticipated.

After the initial cuticle pushing, I then rubbed in my Super Nail brand Cuticle Softener & Remover just to really get in there and get those cuticles where they needed to be.

I also use the other end of my metal cuticle pusher to clean out from under neath the nails. That's where you find all the good stuff :) lol

Next I rubbed in some CND Cuticle Eraser for good measure ;)

Next, I used my clippers and trimmed down his nails.

As most of you know, a glass file is the way to go for natural nails. Mine is from Nail Tek and I got it from a local beauty supply store. I used the file on all of his nails for a nice rounded look.

If you notice on the picture above the purple thing. Well it is a Super Fine sort of buffer thing. I got it from Sally's. I really like it because it is so fine it is gentle on your nails. I used this all over the tops of his nails, making sure to go in a downward motion over the tips of his nails. I like to do this so that there aren't any sharp edges that can still scratch after you file.

I then used my SKINN lotion to moisturize his hands. I massaged it in for about 3 minutes for each hand.

The last step I did was to clean under the nails one more time, as some of the lotion likes to collect under the nails.

And that's it! That took me about an hour, but of course his hands took a little more work because of the cuticles than normal.

Here is Dinky, patiently waiting for her turn last night: