Professional manicure

I have now been doing my own nice long nails for a few weeks now.

They have never looked this good in years. I said I bought Rimmel Gel polish but that was a mistake, it was Boots 17 I bought.

I've looked on line for tips and discovered Sally Hanson Insta-dri. On advice from others paint a base coat (I already had SH base and top coat) leave 2 minutes the paint coloured polish, wait 2 minutes give another coat, wait 2 minutes and apply the Insta-dri. I does what it says on the tin and within seconds the nails are dry, no tackiness whatsoever just glorious shine. You can then get on with your day.

Glammanana

Thank you for that. I have bought some Rimmel Gel polish but I will look at Avon ones.

overthehill Just to let you know (you probably already do) that you can buy "gel" nail varnish which lasts quite a while if you continue to do them yourself I buy it from Avon when they have offers on sale some pretty colours as well.

I complemented a woman on her nails and she said they were gel nails.

My next door neighbour is a beauty therapist so got her to do mine as a try out.

She did them very nicely and they lasted two weeks, when I say lasted there was nothing wrong with the painted bit but my nails had grown through so there was a sizeable gap between my nail bed and the varnish.

The cost was £20 (I live in London) and I really couldn't afford that every two weeks. She understood.

Anyway the good bit of news is, when I got the polish off, my nails are longer than they have been in years.

I have now painted them myself using bottom and top coat along with varnish and they look great. Just interested to see how long they last.

Just up the road from me is a nail bar which has just been raided, and two illegal immigrants were arrested.

The girls ( and guys) in my local nail bar are Vietnamese and very friendly. There isn't much of a staff turnover and most of them have good English and live locally. I like it that when they have a snack they go to the fruit shop next door and buy a bag of oranges or apples and cut them up and hand them round. I can't see English girls of the same age doing this somehow. The prices are reasonable and the shop is really clean. I have a manicure and pedicure every month or so or when I have a special occasion to go to.

NanKate that sounds good.

That's reassuring NanKate

I think it pays to strike up a conversation with the person doing your nails in these cheap nail bars. I might be concerned if no one seemed able to speak any English or if the staff seemed to change very rapidly.

Thanks Nightowl for the warning! however I think in this case things maybe different. They are about 5 young people from a village in Vietnam. Most are related to each other. They take it in turns in the salon as they are studying at the local University. The salon is on the edge of the town so I would imagine is a much cheaper rent.

They are very easy to talk to and none of them look impoverished. I think they may have their parents over here as one of the girls asked me how she could get tickets for Wimbledon for her Mum.

The people running a nail & eyebrow salon not too far away where investigated for the very same thing nightowl I don't know what happened I must find out,they used to be very busy as their prices undercut all the other salons in the area by a huge amount.

Mmm I am very wary of these nail bars NanKate. They can be a cover for all kinds of things including people trafficking and modern day slavery. I think there's a reason the manicures are so cheap and it is probably the workers who are paying the price.

www.humantraffickingfoundation.org/news/2013/modern-day-slavery-british-nail-bars