How to prevent nail polish from 'bubbling'

---

You’re sitting home on a Thursday night and you decide to paint your nails while watching re-runs of The Office. You choose your polish, a nice mint green, and shake the bottle. You then start applying as soon as the opening credits begin. By the time the episode ends, you’ve finished painting your 2-3 coats and you can finally sit, relax and fan your hands dry. But wait a second. What is that?, you say to yourself. You notice by the time 30 Rock has ended that your nails are littered with air bubbles!
If you’re like me, this happens all the time. It is one of the most frustrating things to cope with when painting your nails. It is also one of the hardest things to figure out how to prevent. So I compiled a list of things to try to help your at home-manicure look (almost) as spotless as the salon version. Here is a short list of things to can try to help prohibit your nail polish from bubbling.
Roll the polish between the palms of your hands instead of shaking it like a bottle of hair mousse. While I almost exclusively use this technique, I’ve never really seen any improvement in my nail-drying, but others assure that this works. Rolling it in between your palms is supposed to decrease the likelyhood of air bubbles from forming inside your polish bottle.
Keep your hands cold Before applying, try dunking your hands in a bowl of ice water for a few minutes (it is said that heat will expand the nail polish’s molecules and opens them to air). Just be sure to dry your hands completely and wait a few minutes for any moisture on your nail bed to evaporate before applying.
Thinner, fewer strokes Try to get as much polish on the brush to apply three, thin strokes on your nail. Applying the thinnest layers possible allows the gases in your polish to escape more easily. If not, the gases will form bubbles as each coat dries. Also, the more coats you apply, the more air you put into your polish.
Let it dry completely Nail polish needs do dry completely before applying additional coats. Also, keep in mind that the increased pigments in darker nail polish colors will take longer to dry, so allow more time for your black or blood red colors. If you happen to use a quick-dry spray (like OPI Rapid Dry Spray), do not hold the spray less than about a foot away from your hands.
If you’re still not having any luck, try these extra tips:

• Keep your nail polish cold; store them in the refrigerator. This will also keep them from going bad faster.
• Look into preparing your nails like they do at the nail salon by priming your nails. Do this  by removing the oils from your nail bed by swiping some nail polish remover onto your nails.
• Apply a base coat. A calcium gel base coat is best. The calcium gel will strengthen and help nails to grow faster. A top coat will also help to make the polish adhere to your nails better.
• Keep hands out of the heat or a draft. Air bubbles come from, well, air and hot temperatures and any blowing air can cause bubbles to form on your nails.
• Look into a different nail polish brand. I’ve heard a lot of good things about OPI and Essie nail polish and my personal favorites, Revlon and Sally Hansen's Insta-Dri Fast Dry as well as Complete Salon Manicure.

Tips for Simple Yet Fun Nail Polish Designs

I’m absolutely crazy about painting my nails. When I was in high school, I would obsessively paint my fingernails to match my outfits. Some days, I would just wear basic colors, but others I would experiment with all sorts of designs, shapes and styles.
Those carefree fingernail obsessing days came to a screeching halt when adult responsibility reared its ugly head. Bills have to be paid and laundry needs to get done. And now that I’m a mom, I have three half-pint shadows following me around day-in and day-out, selfishly demanding time sucking luxuries such as food, clothing and attention.
Being an adult hasn’t exactly broken me of my nail obsession, it’s just toned it down some over the years. I no longer have the time, energy, or honestly desire, to do my nails nightly. Instead, I wait for a quiet evening to happen my way and paint them then. If they start to chip, and I haven’t got adequate time to devote to them, I just take off all of the paint with nail polish remover and wait for my next opportunity.
On occasion, I still like to do something funky with my nails, but time is still regularly an issue. So, rather than try to whittle out an hour to paint individual flowers or designs on my nails, I find interesting products that take the detail work out of the equation altogether. Two of my favorites, for both looks and ease, are nail tattoos and crackle polish. Continue reading