Nails & Needles

How to Save a Nail

Today I thought I’d tell you about a little trick I learned from the Internet. Obviously, if you’re a fellow nail blogger, you probably already know this trick, but if you’re not, then this might be a new life saver! The first time I read about it was on, I believe, Lacquerized.

What you need: nail glue*, a tea bag**, an orange stick (cuticle pusher) and a nail file.

Oh, and a broken nail. See, this trick can save a broken nail so you don’t have to file it down. Brilliant, right?

Now, it’s not going to fix it fix it, as in re-attach it permanently to the rest of your nail, so you will eventually have to file it down, but this enables you to wait until the nail has grown out enough that you can file it down a bit but still have it be the length you want.

1. Make sure your nail is clean and dry.
2. Stick on a bit of nail glue.
3. Tear off a small piece of the tea bag (you could cut it with scissors, but I prefer just tearing it — keeps what you need to have in your kit to a minimum) and stick it on top of the glue.
4. Use the orange stick to smooth it out so that there are no bubbles and lies flat on the nail. (Sometimes you need to apply a bit more glue to ensure this.)
5. Apply another coat of glue.
6. Stick on another little piece of tea bag.
7. Repeat step 4.
8. Once the glue has dried completely, use your nail file to smooth out the surface.

Done! Now you can apply your nail polish as usual and not worry about tearing your nail further. It might look a bit less smooth than usual, but with a properly applied polish on top, it should be barely noticeable that something is up with your nail.

If you use a gentle nail polish remover, you can even change your polish without ruining the tea bag mend. However, you might not be able to get all of the polish off, as evidenced by the teeny tiny leftover purple polish you can see on my nail***. Still, that’s a minor inconvenience, compared to hacking off most of your nail.

*I always have an emptied out tea bag and a tube of nail glue in my bag. It’s a good investment and nail saver! Nail glue is available at most beauty supply stores (sometimes you’ll have to buy a pack of fake nails to get it, but not always. Depends on how big their selection is!) and through eBay. I bought a 10-pack of nail glue for about 3 bucks on eBay a while back when I had my fake nail phase, and I’ve not even made a dent in it yet. So, lasts for ages and if it’s not mid-emergency, it’s dirt cheap!

**There are silk wraps available for nails, so if you can get your hands on those, great! But, I haven’t seen them in any shops yet and in an emergency, you’re likelier to have access to a tea bag, which works just as well. The first time I tried this trick, I use a silkier sort of tea bag and had little success, so I would advice to go with a paper tea bag, which is what I’ve used since.

***As you can also see in the photo, my ring finger is ridiculously dry. It’s due to my allergy to oranges and carrots (which presents itself as a rash on my right ring finger and nowhere else on my body. Seriously, nowhere else!) and is one of many reasons why my left hand is my blog hand.