Charlie Tamara Piper

I've always had problematic nails. They chip and peel pretty easily which I addressed by keeping them short. For as much as I wanted to grow them out, I just couldn't figure out the best tricks to get length. I wanted to see if I could turn my nails around and, thanks to some research and putting together a great routing, I feel like I finally found products and a routine that really help my nails out.  Nov. 6 - Starting point Here are my nails at the starting point on November 6. My skin gets very dry in the fall and winter and my nails were certainly feeling it the most. I had peeling on my right ring and middle fingernails that I had to address. Here's how I started treating my nails: - I switched my nails to a rounded shape. For as much as I love square or squoval tips, a round nail shape does the best job at preventing snags and peels on nails. It's a great protective shape, particularly as I was trying to grow out damaged nails. ...

Fall is here! Fall is my absolute favorite season and I enjoy the darker colors of autumn. I'll wear a dark manicure any time of the year but it's clear that you can get away with it more in fall. While at my local Walgreens I found this dark, vampy shade called Nemesis from CoverGirls's Outlast Stay Brilliant line of nail polish. I have a ton of dark polishes - each one that I believe is somehow unique! - but this one had enough of a purple undertone in it to seem more unique than many of my other darker polishes, with a black, brown or red base to them. And at $6.50 for the bottle, it was worth a shot. CoverGirl claims this polish contains a base coat, pigment and top coat in one bottle so that no additional products are necessary. Customer reviews indicate that the polish has great wear to it, which I'm particularly keen on - by day three, I usually touch up or even redo my nails because I don't like the way they look anymore. My first impressions of th...

Sundays are my beauty days, and I turn my home into a spa. My ritual starts with doing a facial, deep conditioning my hair, and ending it with the best part: painting my nails. Before I end my beauty day, I thought I'd share the tools that make my home manicure look professional. Cuticle Care I love using Josie Maran's 100% Pure Argan Oil Light as a moisturizer to soften up my cuticles. I'll then use my Sephora metal cuticle pusher (similar available here ) to gently push my cuticles back.  I purchased a great manicure kit from Sephora a few years ago and kept the pieces that work best for me (similar available here ). I'll grab my cuticle nipper to gently clip away at any hang nails that might have after I've pushed back my cuticles. Nail Shaping Once my cuticles are taken care of I'll turn my attention to trimming and shaping my nails if need be. My Revlon nail file (similar available here ) is the perfect file to shape and finish my nails. P...