My Pick of This Year’s Nail Hardeners – Manicures That Last For Weeks

How To Have Nails That Are As Hard As … Nails

Nail splitting, peeling and chipping is a common occurrence for people with brittle nails. Exposing your nails to water too often and for too long can make your nails very dry and thin. To make things worse, genetics also play a role in the game. You can definitely make a difference by using moisturizer for your hands and nails, but if you really want to nourish your nails back to health and make them stronger – you need to use a nail hardener.

These work by strengthening your nail plates which means they are less likely to chip and break, therefore creating a good base for polishes and manicures.

But how do you use nail hardeners?

1. Nail hardener application is similar to applying a polish
2. Start off by cleaning your nails – remove your polish, wash your hands, and finally, dry them well.
3. Then, paint a thin coat of nail hardener on your nails using three strokes, down the sides and the center.
4. Allow the nail hardener to dry completely
5. Polish over the nail hardener with your favorite color, or leave bare.
6. In case you have extremely dry and damaged nails, repeat this process every day for a week or two. When you start noticing your nails are stronger, you can shift to applying nail hardener once a week. It’s as simple as that to change your dry, brittle nails into great looking nails worthy of a manicure.

1) Quimica Alemana Advanced Nail Hardener

What Makes It Great

This three combo set contains 3 decent sized bottles of nail hardener. Designed to be used as either a base or top coat, or if you prefer, just by itself. Applied a very thin coat carefully to the nail, and you’ll see a visible result very quickly. I found the results very impressive, my nails were definitely harder, but seemed to be growing rapidly too.

Where It Could Be Improved

If using on bare nails, I found it produced a strange warm feeling; however when used as a top coat, this didn’t happen, but I still felt the results were as good – nails that were stronger, and quicker to grow.

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2) Nail Magic Nail Hardener

 

What Makes It Great

I’ve always like Nail Magic products, so I was prepared to like this hardener, too, and I wasn’t disappointed. I followed the instructions, applying 1 or 2 thin coats, twice a week, for 8 weeks – luckily this bottle lasts forever as so little is used each time, and started noticing a difference towards the end of the 8 week period. I applied it, as designed, as a base coat, top coat or just as it came and my nails did actually feel harder.

Where It Could Be Improved

I found that during the first week of use, my nail edges did break off in places. Looking into this, it seems to be a common issue due to the nail tip hardening before there is any new nail growth. It didn’t reoccur and wasn’t an issue.

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3) Sally Hansen Diamond Nail Hardener

What Makes It Great

This formula uses real micro-diamonds and titanium to create ultra hard, strong nails. Just paint it on in thin layers, and it provides instantly hard nails. I was surprised at both how quick this works and how hard my nails felt.

Where It Could Be Improved

It does have quite a strong odor, and although this went quickly, it left me with a slight headache for a while – my fault for not opening the window. However, this doesn’t put me off!

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What else do I recommend?