Look After Your Nails!

I have been meaning to this kind of post for a while, but other things got in the way, and to be honest I wasn't sure of how this is going to go down as it is not really a make up kind of post, but just stay with me here...
(I'm sorry if you only come here for the make up side and reviews, there will be back after this one, I promise, but I thought it's my blog, my life, and maybe if my little after thoughts help someone then I think I am doing alright. Sorry for rambling, but this post is pretty ramble-y)
So lets start...

I remember when I was younger, much younger and I was just getting into putting make up on and painting my nails, my friends at the time didn't really have there nails painted, so I felt a bit strange having mine painted so I never did it often, until I was about 15/16 and I went through a faze of putting nail polish on everyday, but back in the day I was into black nails (gofff, not so much, but I did wear an awful lot of black, and green for that matter..) which I kept on my little stubby nails, I use to bite my nails until they were down to the quick and I had bearly any nail left, I did then go through a faze of liking everything green and I wore different shade of green on every finger.
But anyway, the main point of this blog post is, when I was 15/16 I had no nails, I wasn't that embarrassed about them, I just had a nervous problem and at any time that I felt nervous my fingers would be in my mouth biting my already small nails off.

When I was about 20, I started to get my nails professionally done, every 3 weeks, sometimes 4 depending on my funds that month! I loved getting my nails done, this was nothing that I had ever experienced in my life, and I think this is how I got into make up and beauty things, as for the first time I actually liked how I looked, and I think the confidence with getting Gel manicures helped a great deal.
I use to get so many different colours and designs, and was excited when it was time to get them renewed as I had so many ideas flying round my head of what I wanted for the forthcoming month.
This is when I discovered people actually cared about their nails, as the first time I stepped into the Salon the Beauticians asked me so many questions like have I ever used cuticle oils and how would I like my nails shaped.
I never knew anything about cuticles, or even that there were oils for cuticles. And as for the shape - I want my nails... normal?!

This is when the Nail Technician went into a tizz and said that I had to look after my nail bed with cuticle oils, this was news to me anyway.
And for shaping, I was told you can get 'round', 'squoval' and 'square' - all terms I had never heard of before.
She explained them to me and I decided to go for 'squoval'.

Since then I have always gone for the 'squoval', but recently, well not that recently - a few years ago - me and my boyfriend decided to move in with each other, and with moving/washing he dishes my gel manicure got very wrecked with the result of them chipping so I took them off, and since then, note that my nails have never seen the light of day for about 3 years, and for the first time my nails were long, strong an 'girly' and since then I have not had my nails professionally done, I have went out and bought a load of nail polishes, as I never needed too paint my nails before.

So this brings me to today, I do my nails frequently in alot of different colours and styles and my cuticles are healthy and the shape has slightly changed to 'square' which I am more than happy about.

The point of this, I may have gone off in a tangent, sorry, is when I was in my teens, my nails were a horrible stubby mess and if I had those nails now I wouldn't feel good showing my hands off, when I got them professionally done I learnt so much on looking after my nails and eventually my nails grew and got much stronger, and today my nails are in such good condition, still as strong and are at a good length I am happy with.

So my after thought is, look after your nails, if you look after them, you can get long talons that everyone wants, you don't need to go to the salon, just grow them and your confidence grow too - like mine did!