Let's face it, if you use nail polish, you're going to have some staining. It's a lesson I've learned, no matter how much base coat I use. So late one night after having learned this lesson I turned to my best friend - the Internet - and asked what I could do to whiten my nails. Amongst calls of baking soda, toothpaste and peroxide, I found mention of Orly's Cutique.
Oh Cutique...
I had read many a wonderful thing about Cutique prior to ordering myself a bottle. Of course quite a few wonderful reviews talked about it's main purpose - cuticle remover - but what I had actually purchased this bottle for was it's apparent powers of stain removal.Why? Well. I, too, suffer from Nailus Stainus.
Cutique gently removes dead tissue, making cuticles soft and pliable. Leaves nails whiter. Great for pedicures.
SO! Did this little bottle of white goo pull through on it's promise of pliable cuticles and (most importantly) whiter nails? My results are after the jump!
Though beware. Naked Nails lay ahead.
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| *Legosi-as-Dracula era lightening strikes and dramatic organ music go here* |
These are my nails. Long, yes. Abused? Certainly. Yellow? Obviously.
Of course they're not as yellow as they'd be if I didn't use base coat, but still stained more than I'd like them to be. It's funny, as when I was younger (at an age where I only cared if my nails could scratch an itch) I'd have people ask if I had french manicures. The first time I had to ask what a french manicure was ^^; Oh how things change.
The night before applying Cutique I removed my manicure and gave my nails a nice Olive Oil soak (which is something I'll have to dedicate a post to one of these days), having read that the product can be quite drying.
So, above is my before picture. Let's all weep a bit. Done? OK, let's move on!
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| Goop Soaking. |
The instructions say to slather on the goo and wait up to sixty seconds, push your cuticles back with an orange wood stick and wash off with warm water (in so many words). As shown above, I did just that (minus the orange wood stick bit as I really don't think my cuticles need pushing), though I waited sixty five seconds just to be contrary. What they say about this product being drying was no joke. I had peelies on my poor babies, though it was nothing cuticle oil and lotion didn't remedy most of.
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| After rinsing, post moisturizing. |
Are they whiter? I think so, if maybe by just a shade. There's still a few peelies on my fingers in this photo, which actually required a small bit of buffing after the photos were taken to remove, which I wasn't too happy about, especially seeing as the results weren't as dramatic as I'd hoped.
As a whitener I'm not impressed, though perhaps I'll have better luck in the next few applications. Or maybe I'm a bit blind?
On a side note, later on in the day I decided to give myself a pedicure and noted that the cuticles were attempting a hostile takeover of my toenails (don't worry, there will be no photos of that!). As gross as it was I thought it'd be a great opportunity to try Cutique's cuticle softening abilities - I was happily surprised at how easily it was to push back and remove the dead bits of cuticle from my toe, and painlessly at that!
So as a cuticle softener/remover Cutique is a wonderful little product and will come in handy, if anything, for my pedicures.
'Til next time!
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Nerdy
Do you have a method for whitening your ten babies?
What's the silliest thing you've heard of using as a nail whitener?
Leave a comment below and tell us all about it ^.^
That's too bad about the drying!! I wouldn't like that at all. I usually just brush my nails with toothpaste and a toothbrush to whiten them a bit and give them an occasional buffing to clean em up. I don't really care that much if they're a little yellow cuz they're always painted. :)
ReplyDeleteI would buff mine out more but they're tragically thin as it is ._. They're see-through when they get wet O.O so I'm trying to back away from the buffer for a while and stick with olive oil soaks.
ReplyDeleteIt is funny how some of us are obsessed with whitening our nails when they're normally five coats under ^.^' Maybe it's due to growing up with our nails all white and pretty and one day we take the polish off to discover our nails have transformed into school busses xD