These are my nails...Rejuvacote Edition
7:00 AM
Alright, it's time for my second post on nail strengtheners. I wish these didn't take so long to put together, but it really requires around four weeks to see the full results on most strengtheners. You need to allow your nail enough time to make a significant growth in order to see how the treatment is affecting your nail. That's one reason I really don't care for using treatments. You're meant to use them for two weeks only, for safety reasons, but two weeks isn't long enough to maximize results. I digress. My first treatment post was about OPI Nail Envy. You might remember from that post that it caused MAJOR peeling on my nails and really, it didn't help them much. I left my other hand polish free while I was using that treatment and my polish free hand came out the same strength and peel free. Plus the growth on that hand was double the OPI hand. So I decided to try out Duri Rejuvacote since many of you rave about it. The above is my starting point. These are all sort of shoddy photos and I apologize for that but my camera wasn't always available during this trial and I wanted to be sure to have more updates! Anyway you can see that they're sort of thin and not very long or strong. For the life of me I can't remember what had caused the thinning at that time since I haven't had any enhancements on my nails in some time but I think it was just too much polishing and buffing. I wore the Rejuvacote for the first week with no polish and reapplied a new coat everyday as per the instructions. Here are my nails after the first week:
There's not a crazy amount of growth but that's normal. You can't expect miracles in a week! The really great thing to notice here is that the thinning nail should have grown out and made a weak free edge. It didn't. The growth is strong and my nails look tons healthier already. I kept using the Rejuvacote for two more weeks, but this time I polished intermittently. I used it as a base coat and reapplied OVER polish every day as per the instructions, except in cases where I changed the polish. Then I just started over with the base coat. Here are my nails two weeks later:
NOW we're seeing progress. I broke my index but this was because of a previous injury which grew out. You can sort of see it if you look at the second picture and even a little on the first. It was a bend low on my nail and when it grew up the plate it turned into a deep peel. I also managed to break my pinky nail BUT it took A LOT. I actually shut it in a car door and normally this would probably cause it to just crack off cleanly. In this case, it bent backward and I had to TEAR it off with my teeth. I didn't have clippers with me and I couldn't get it to just tear off. Insane. I noticed minimal peeling but not nearly so bad as with the Nail Envy. I also noticed that my nails looked and felt much thicker but they weren't brittle like some strengtheners make them. I continued using this for one more week and this is where the story changes. I wasn't able to get a picture of this guys but...this caused separation of my nail bed from the nail. :( Now. Before I get you all terrified, let me explain. At first when I saw my bed separate from my nail I freaked. the. flip. out. Legit. I was REALLY freaking. Of course I stopped using the strengthener and all polish/remover/etc to allow the bed to reattach and be assured this was not from another source. It was not. However, upon further investigation, I realized something. It wasn't actually causing separation. The strengthener caused not only my NAILS to grow, but also my upper cuticle. This is the skin on the back of the nail that attatches the base of the free edge to the nail. It was growing up MUCH higher than usual. You can tell when this happens because A) you'll notice that your nails look MUCH shorter, even though the free edge is long. It makes your beds look longer. and B) you can gently separate this skin from the back of the nail plate without pain. It had already started separating itself and when I stopped using the Rejuvacote, all my other nails followed suit. Still...I don't like that. If it's making my skin grow extra...who knows what else it's doing? Moral? Rejuvacote DOES work. BUT...stick to three week intervals and then take a week or two off and start again!!
Have you used Rejuvacote? Did you love it?
8 comments
Whoa, seriously? You're not supposed to use it all the time? I don't use it daily (I don't polish daily) and I don't use it as a topcoat, and I haven't experienced any of the cuticle growth you have, but I'm a little freaked now, lol. And, apparently the search for the perfect basecoat resumes.... :/ Awesome post, though.
ReplyDeletei have experienced the cuticle growth as well, but i like the fact that m y nail beds look longer because of it
ReplyDeleteI get in trouble with nail strengtheners containing formaldehyde if I use more than about a week. My nails are naturally thin so I get terrible peeling from over using these products. I'm now using Dermanail to correct my last mess, and flouride strengthener which is suppoused to be less likely to over harden nails and cause the peeling. It took me a while to figure this out and be careful about ingredients with toulene, formaldehyde, and other names for them.
ReplyDeleteI use Rejuvacote 2 which is a 3 free edition, but now it's getting difficult for me to get it again because I bought on ebay because I live in South America, and now they don't ship to my country anymore. With edition 2 my nails have been beautiful, as I am very sensitive to some chemicals it was the best discovery ever! You should try too ;)
ReplyDeleteLu, please could you post the Rejuvacote 2 link. I really want to buy the exact same 3 free product. Thank you.
DeleteI just started using Rejuvacote so I haven't formed an opinion yet, but I thought I would share with you that the Amazon page I bought it from specifies "Be careful not to apply to cuticles." It does seem like that should be included on the bottle though, if doing otherwise can cause problems like you saw.
ReplyDeleteYou really should keep ALL products containing formaldehyde off your skin. It can poison you. Of course, it's not very likely as the amounts are small but used over time you never know! Getting it on your skin should not cause over growth though.
DeleteI recently have had the cuticle growth issue…it was getting crusty under my nails even...I was super confused as to what was going on, even saw a bit of nail separation…and then I took my polish off after over a week of wear (long wearing polish with no chips so I kept it on) and then I saw the nail separation. LOTS of nail separation on my pinky and ring fingers on both hands. All of my nails/nail beds feel sensitive but there is only lifting on the last 2 fingers on both hands. This is scary. I have been using Duri for years. YEARS and only now having these issues. It is really freaky to see and now my nails have to be super short and stubby and I am literally very upset at this product. I used it for years with not one problem. All it did was help my nails grow. But now it decided it was going to hate me and ruin my nails!
ReplyDeleteThank you for visiting and commenting! I read all my comments and love to hear from you! Please DO NOT leave links in the comment box. ALL links which are not relevant to the post are subject to deletion. If you'd like me to check out your blog, please email me at BeePolished@yahoo.com. Thank you again!