Tips & Tricks: Clean-up Method

My first Tips & Tricks post I have for you is what the MUA nailboard refers to as the clean-up method.  The original tutorial I used was posted by Meganchair and helped me immensely.  

You can look at Meganchair's original tutorial here:

Meganchair clean-up method (CLICK) for link: http://polishorperish.blogspot.com/2010/09/how-to-get-that-picture-perfect.html 

Now onto how I perform my clean-up.  While paiting my nails I like to use a clean orange stick to wipe off any paint I get on my skin or mistakes I make.  This helps make clean-up faster and easier, the less mess you make the less yo will have to clean-up later.

Before clean-up

Items needed:

Acetone

I prefer to use a 1/2 & 1/2 mix of Beauty Secrets brand Pure Acetone and Acetone Remover.  This mix works best FOR ME since it removes polish I'm cleaning up quickly but doesn't dry out my skin or leave the

white residue pure acetone does. 

I use this smaller bottle to keep my mix in:

A stiff brush

Got this brush from Michaels.  It's a #8 Flat brush, from the painting section, and I paid around $2-$3 for it.

Since I am NOT a fan of pouring remover into the cap of my bottle, I prefer to dip my brush directly into my bottle and wipe some of the excess off in the cap or on a paper towel.  Then use the brush to wipe around your nail and remove any polish mistakes that may have happened while painting.  I also prefer to do this after I have applied Top Coat so that any Top Coat that got onto my skin gets removed and won't flake off later.

For me, there was definitely a learning curve for this method.  When I first started, I was taking way too much polish off and ended up having very large cuticle gaps.  Just like learning to paint my nails better though with practice the gaps got smaller and smaller and now I love that I can have that perfect line on all my fingers.

After clean-up. OPI DS Signature with China Glaze Cracked Concrete Crackle accent nail

Holo goodness!