butter LONDON Horse Power Week 4

butter london


Well we are at the end of week four on butter LONDON Horse Power and this is how my nails look today. I lost a corner of my index nail but I'm pretty sure it's related to the kitty claw injury I sustained early on. Overall my nails seem pretty much the same as they would if I grew them out without strengthener. I did have some peeling with this one as well. Much less than with the OPI and most of it is limited to my index finger so I can't say for certain it was caused by the butter LONDON because I did have an injury. But I also have a few small ones towards the tip of my middle finger. It did seem to prevent staining fairly well and no scary skin growth like with the Rejuvacote. I also like that it's clear so when you want to reapply over polish it doesn't alter the color. I certainly would recommend it to anyone who wants to try out a strengthener. Overall my preference of the three I've tried was the Rejuvacote but I liked that this applies easily and dries quickly. You also don't need to take weeks off like with the Rejuvacote (although they recommend you do!). I'm going to show you the difference between this hand and the hand I left unpolished next week and I really encourage you to check back with that post because it's important to see what polishing really does to your nails. It DOES damage them (though very minimally) and that's why I always recommend growing them out polish free for a few weeks before you resume your polish routine so you get a nice, strong, fresh base to start with. Have you ever used this product? Did you have good results?

Butter LONDON Horse Power: Week Two

butter london horse power

So it's week two and it's time to check in on how my nails are doing with the butter LONDON Horse Power treatment. Honestly so far they seem to be doing about the same as they would with no treatment. They're not growing any faster than my other hand but they're also not breaking so I suppose maybe it's doing SOME good. Also good is that I've so far had no peeling which seems to be a common problem for me with strengtheners.  I'm going to let them go one more week before I square them off just to make sure I have enough length to soften the corners.  But so far so good! They're looking really healthy!  I've followed the original instructions to wear it for one week, applying daily and then remove and start over and now I'm polishing and using it as a base coat, as well as reapplying daily! I can't wait to see what they'll look like next week! 

Have you used Horse Power? Did you love it or hate it?

butter LONDON Horsepower

butter london


Well ladies and gentlemen, I bring you a month of butter LONDON Horse Power. This October, Bee Polished will be focusing on the unappreciated world of "small nail" artists. I have some guest posts coming from some of my most favorite bloggers as well as some features I'll do on other faves. I will also have some super cool art for you AND some exciting Digital Dozen news. I'm starting here, with my little "nubbins" as they're known in the nail world.  Now don't get me wrong, I love to see long perfectly polished nails as much as the next person but there's a funny thing about that; it's not reality. Most of us have jobs and responsibilities and not so perfect talons. Which is perfectly OK.  There's this weird pressure in the nail art world to have perfect nails. To have perfect nail art. To have long nails. Just like in the world of fashion which tells us that in order to be beautiful and loved we must be size zeros, there's that push to have these amazing long nails.  Now I'm not saying that bloggers who have long nails aren't beautiful too!! But I think it's important to celebrate the world of small nails too! Personally, my recent chop off was due to a lot of job interviewing and type tests. I wanted to get rid of the stained nails and keep them short and professional and ideal for speedy typing. I've never been one to go super long though. I'm quite athletic and it's just a hassle when they're long and in the way.  I love having them shorter though because I think you can really get away with crazier designs when there isn't as much of a canvas!  I'm starting off small nails month a little early and throughout the month I'm going to be updating you with pictures of how this butter LONDON Horse Power is helping my nails grow.  I've already tested Rejuvacote and Nail Envy so it seems fitting to do this one as well! For the first two weeks I'll be using it on it's own according to directions on the package. It does say you can polish over it so for the remaining two weeks I'll be using it as a base coat only. On my left hand, I'll be using no polish and no Horse Power. I forgot to take pics but what I really want to show you in the end is how wearing polish affects the health of your nails so it's sort of irrelevant. They obviously all start the same length! I can't wait for you guys to see what's in store for the next month so please stay tuned!! :)


These are my nails...Rejuvacote Edition

brittle nails


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? 


These are my nails...

after acrylics


These are MY nails on Nail Envy.  Ok so I will start by saying that I have never been a big supporter of nail strengthening products.  There are two main reasons for this.  One: I have never had any real need of them.  My nails have always been strong and grow quickly without peeling unless I'm being really crazy with them (like the week I had three sets of student acrylics and a set of wraps put on and taken off them!!).  I would love to attribute this to my healthy, vegetarian lifestyle but...I probably just need to thank my wonderful parents for the good genes.  Two: they don't really work.  Now, I know some of you are thinking, but they make MY nails stronger.  Well...let me rephrase that for you.  They do work.  In a sense.  Do they add strength to your nails? Yes.  Do they prevent peels? They can.  But are they really STRENGTHENING your nails? No.  Nail strengtheners are a lot like split end "repair" creams in that they DO fix the problem but they don't really FIX the problem.  They work at the surface of your nail which is why if you want to keep seeing results, you need to keep applying them into forever.  I actually have a post planned which will discuss different strengtheners and why to use them or not to and how they work. That's not for today! Today I want to show you why I personally choose to abstain.  I got this bottle of Nail Envy by OPI for free and I have used it here and there when my nails have been wrecked. More so because I find that it feels soothing than anything else. But since I had two nubbin hands I decided, I may as well test out this theory!  I totally flaked on a pic of my nails before I started this routine but both were the same length and they were essentially just below the tips of my fingers.  I did exactly what the Nail Envy bottle said to do and applied two coats the first day and one every other for two weeks.  I didn't use any polish during that time on EITHER hand but left my other one completely free of polish or treatments.  I didn't see much change so I gave myself a mani at the end of the first two weeks and then started over.  This is four weeks of nail growth.  My middle finger broke early on so it's a bit shorter than the others but aside from that I had no serious problems. Now, you might be saying to yourself, those look pretty good, right? Well ladies and gentlemen...let me show you my OTHER hand:



This is pre-manicure so excuse my raging cuticles!  I did have one tragedy on this side as well and you can see it on the pinky. Looks like someone got hungry and took a bite! However, overall the growth is definitely better on this side than the other. Aside from the difference in growth I had another issue with the nail envy side...


Check out the tip there....hello peelies!  Yikes.  I don't think I'll use the Nail Envy again unless it's dire straights. One thing I would like to point out though is that using a nail strengthener on strong nails CAN make them brittle.  That wasn't the issue here but in the interest of full disclosure now you know.  I asked some of you on my Facebook how you felt about Nail Envy and there were mixed reviews.  Some of you mentioned Seche Rebuild, Nail Magic, Nail Tek and Rejuvacote.  I'll definitely be including some of those in my upcoming nail strengthener post!! 

Have any of you had better results with Nail Envy?

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