Well-Groomed Manicured Nails Can Elevate Your Appearance
Maintaining your nails with regular manicures and pedicures is an important step in your beauty routine that can elevate your appearance and is like an accessory for your outfit. When you don’t take care of your hands, feet, and nail health, this can lead to dry, brittle, yellow nails, cracked heels, and age spots. When it comes to grooming pay attention to the details, as nails that are too long, wearing chipped polish, or the wrong nail shade can age you and make you look less attractive. Here are 15 common mistakes that could be ruining the health and appearance of your nails.
1. Skipping Cuticle Care
Well-maintained cuticles give a polished look to your nails, making them appear neat and chic. It’s essential to care for your nails and cuticles between manicures and pedicures by using a cuticle oil, trimming them if they are overgrown, and nourishing your hands and feet with moisturizer or coconut oil.
2. Choosing the Wrong Nail Shape
Nails that are too long, too square, or have a sharp point look tacky, and overpowering and can draw attention to aging and imperfections. The most modern and flattering look is squoval—a shorter square/oval shape.
3. Ugly Aging Nail Shades
Nail colors that are too dark create a stark contrast with your skin tone and can emphasize age lines, wrinkles, and uneven skin tone. Beware of heavy or dull grays, black, deep chocolate brown, vampy purple, and vibrant red shades if you’re older. The French polish, especially if your nails are long (or on your pedicure) is also an outdated trend that will make you look dated.
4. Neglecting Nail Health
Neglecting your nail care leads to dry, brittle, discolored, chipped, cracked, and ridged nails. These are all signs of poor nail health and can make your hands appear aged and unkempt.
5. Dehydrated Heels and Feet
Like your face, the skin on your hands and feet needs daily moisturization to retain its health elasticity and suppleness. Without proper nourishment, the skin on your hands and feet can become dry, flakey, tight, and prone to sagging.
Uneven Skin Tone and Brown Age Spots
Well-maintained hands show you care about your appearance and have good grooming habits. Dry hands, aged spots, or uneven skin tone give the impression of neglect or poor self-care, contributing to an older-looking appearance. Always apply sunscreen to your hands to protect against damage and brown aged spots and use a brightening, nourishing hand cream to improve their texture and radiance.
7. Not Using Base Coat
It’s important to apply a base coat prior to nail polish to give your nails a protective layer. A Base coat also helps strengthen nails and prevents them from becoming dry, brittle, and prone to breakage.
8. Cutting nails too short
When nails are cut too short, more of the fingertip and surrounding skin is exposed, making you look poorly groomed. This can also highlight imperfections such as uneven skin tone, age spots, or wrinkled hands.
9. Unsightly Foot Imperfections
Your poor feet carry you everywhere but they are often the most neglected part of your body. Without regular maintenance or squeezing them into shoes that are too small or tight can cause calluses, corns, blisters, and ugly bunions to develop on the feet. Exfoliate your feet regularly, apply nourishing foot balms at night, and wear socks to lock in moisture while you sleep to avoid painful cracked heels.
10. Roughly Filing Nails and Feet
Roughly filing your finger or toenails can create an unevenly shape, and disheveled appearance and make them more susceptible to chips and breakages. And beware of harshly filing or shaving the heels of your feet as this can cause unnecessary friction leading to skin thinning and cracked heels.
11. Chipped Nail Polish
Chipped nail polish is a bad look that says you are neglectful toward your beauty and grooming routine. Remove old polish each week because if you leave it on too long it can turn your nails yellow and make them chip and peel. Keep up those regular manicures and pedicures to stay stylish and polished.
12. Not Using Hand Cream
Your hands are prone to dehydration and dryness, so drink 2.7 liters of water per day and nourish them with a moisture-rich hand cream. You should moisturize your hands regularly throughout the day and always after washing them, especially if you use anti-bacterial washes as they strip the hands of their natural oils and lead to dry hands, brittle nails, and ragged cuticles.
13. Overuse of Acrylics and Gels
Applying acrylic nails or having regular gel manicures can weaken the natural nails underneath, leading to brittleness, discoloration, and nail bed damage which impacts healthy growth. Take a break from these chemical nail treatments to allow your natural nails to breathe, recover, and rejuvenate.
14. Tacky Nail Art and Embellishments
Proceed lightly with fantasy nails, nail art, metallic and glitter polishes, and embellishments as they can look tacky. It’s better to keep your nails short and chic and go for classic shades of red, white, soft pink, and neutral.
15. Yellow Discolored Nails
Certain nail polishes, especially darker shades and those with strong pigments, can stain the nails. Over time, this causes discoloration turning your nails yellow and making them look aged. Neglecting nail and cuticle care can also make them split, break, and become brittle faster.