So why not just go the extra mile pull out my camera french manicure designs, my lighting film the process, edit it, do a voiceover and upload it, it seems like a lot of extra steps when I could just do my nails in private, but you know that’s what we do around here I’ve decided to go a little bit shorter with my nails because it is january I have been watching a lot of tidying up with Marie kondo on Netflix and I have been turning this household upside down, I’m going balls to the wall with de cluttering with cleaning, I’ve got like five D I Y projects on the go right now, so shorter nails seem to make more sense for doing hands on things around the house I loved my long nails but it’s time for a little break I will probably grow them out again, but for right now I’m just gonna rock, these little matte white chocolate men nail art.I’m channeling chocolates, today I love matte white nails I think they’re so crisp and so fresh and so clean, they’re perfect for my january which is all about cleanliness and cluttering and all of that so that is what we have on the menu today and you know who else appreciates my short nails is Louis because I can get right behind his ears right behind his neck and massage that area there and with longer nails I can get quite.In there you know I got to work a little bit harder with longer nails so, um, he is very happy that I have trimmed my nails off, as always, I feel the need to make a little disclaimer for those of you who are new to my channel or just stumbling across this video I am not a professional when it comes to nails, I’m a professional makeup artist I am just a girl at home who likes to do her own nails to save a couple bucks so I don’t have professional training everything that I know is through trial and error, and through watching my nail Tech, do my nails over the years I don’t do nails on other people I just do them on myself and I have been doing this on myself since about 2015 so with that being said as usual everything that I use will be listed in the description box below, if you guys enjoy this video, please give it a thumbs up, thank you guys very much for watching and thank you for subscribing and staying subscribed and let’s get into it, welcome back to salon rains today I’m going from this long Barbie pink coffin nail that I did in my last log to the square mat.Little chocolates, we are basically channeling chocolates today because I really need a break from long nails I have quite a bit of trimming and filing to do to get to this length, so as always let’s start off with removal first with a gentle nail file, I’m roughing up the top layer of my nails so that when I soak them my remover solution penetrates the polish faster and easier I said in my last video that I wouldn’t include the entire removal part in detail in all of my future videos but based on the comments it seems like you guys actually enjoy this part of the process, so I think I’ll just keep it in for my future videos for removal as usual I have my gel ish, artificial nail remover, which is basically just acetone I have some aluminum foil squares and some cotton balls I like to pour my remover solution into a little shot glass and with a pair of tweezers I take little pieces of my cotton ball I saturate them in the remover solution and I place them on top of my nails over a piece of.Aluminum foil and once I have my cotton ball covering my nail completely including the tip I wrap the aluminum around my finger and basically create a little burrito, and then I move onto my next finger, the reason why I’m using tweezers to do this is so that I don’t mess up the polish on my right hand that I did off camera fifteen minutes after about ten to fifteen minutes of soaking it’s time to remove my old polish and because I filed the top layer of my nails before soaking them the nail polish should crumble right off as it is here I’d say right now is a perfect time for me to go a little bit shorter with my nails I put my nails through the ringer at the end of December with cooking and the beginning of january I’ve been like cluttering and cleaning so I’ve started to see a few cracks in my nails before I file my nails, I’m gonna trim them using nail clippers I cut the tip off at once, but the remainder of the nail.Requires me to slowly clip from either the left to the right or the right to the left, so that A I don’t hurt myself and b. it doesn’t damage my nail plate I wouldn’t recommend chopping your nails off all at once you kind of want to go from one side to the other and once I’ve trimmed off the majority of the growth, I’m going in with a gentle nail file and I’m filing down the rest while also filing the tops of my nails to smooth them out from the polish that was just on them and the whole removal process, sometimes it makes the top of my nails, look a little bit rough, so I just want to smooth that out and prepared them for my nail polish and today I’m going for a square shape, so I’m filing the tip straight across and I’m also filing the sides straight up and down I want like a complete square.Once I have my desired shape I always clean up my work station with my little dirt devil and I like to wash my hands to get rid of all the nail dust that’s all over them, now it’s time to trim my cubicles and groom, my nails as always I am first soaking my cubicles in the Sally Hansen instant cuticle remover, this stuff is bomb, I’ve said this before it’s one of my favorite products for nails, it melts away any excess skin around my nails I can’t do my manicure without it.Five minutes later and then I scrape away all the dead skin around my nails around my cuticle’s using the paddle side of my cuticle pusher tool like I said in my previous videos as well as in the comments, this is a personal preference, you do not have to trim your cubicles, if you do not want to but for me it elevates my manicure and it makes it look super clean I will never stop doing it, but to each their own after scraping off all of the dead skin around my nails, I’m gonna wipe up all of that mush, that’s left over with a clean cotton pad and I’m moving on to the actual trimming of my dead cubicles, so this year is a professional cuticle nipper tool, it is very sharp being as careful as I can be to cut just the excess skin that’s hanging around and not my life skin, sometimes I might get a little bit of my life skin, you know I’m not perfect but I try to do my best and I think the key is to just be patient and go slowly I always like to have a paper towel under my head.Hands when I’m doing this for easy clean up later and once my fingernails are nice and groomed I wash my hands again to get off any excess cuticle remover gel that may be lingering on my nails. Hmm, mm mm mm, mm, mm, mm, mm mm, and now I’m moving on to painting before I start to paint I am going to cleanse my nails using the c&d nail surface cleanser, this is like a sanitize or I’m doing this with a cotton pad, ideally I’d use a lint free nail wipe but I’ve been so lazy to repurchase those lately so I’ve just been using cotton pads, if you do use a cotton pad, just be sure that there’s no cotton left on your nails because it will stick to your polish when you’re applying it, and if you cure that you can actually see the cotton stuck on your finger so you want to make sure to brush that off a nail surface cleanser ensures that my nails are clean of any excess dirt or oil that’s left on my nail plates which will make my polish adhere better and I could leave it there but I also like to use my gel ish, ph bond dehydrate or as an extra little step, you don’t have to do.This I only use it because I have it on hand, so my first layer is going to be my jealous foundation which will act as a base for the rest of my products, a base creates a sticky adhesive bond between the nail plate and the polish without damaging the nail, it’s basically like a primer I like to do a thin layer of this because a little bit goes a long way and I don’t want it to drip down the sides of my nails onto my skin, you definitely want to keep your foundation layers, super thin thin layers for each coat of polish is the way to go I sound like a broken record because I say this in every one of my videos but it’s it’s truly a great tip, so once the foundation is on, I’m curing it for 45 seconds and just for reference, the lamp that I’m using is a mini jellyfish LED lamp, if you want more information on the lamp or the products that I use I will list them in the description box below and I will also put a more in-depth video in the cards on the screen somewhere.ZA.After my foundation is cured, I’m going to move onto my gel ish, structured l oh my god try saying that three times in my last video I use this translucent pink shade today, I’ll be working with a clear version of this I’m using the clear one because I’m working with a white nail polish after this and I don’t want the pink peeking through it all as I said in my last video, this structure gel is amazing, especially if your nails are on the thinner side, it really helps to strengthen the nail and provides a beautifully smooth surface for color polish, if you have any damage unevenness or ridges in your nails, this stuff will fill and even them right up and give you a smooth canvas to work on I would highly highly recommend this, it’s especially great if you’re not a professional like me once I’ve got that on I’m curing it for 45 seconds and I’m moving on to my color polish. Mhm mm mm mm mm, I’m working with an opium gel polish in the shade alpine snow, this is a beautiful crisp white shade I find that opie I gel polishes tend to be a little bit on the wet side, they’re not very opaque, so I like to shake up the bottle really well and I work with it in very thin coat, and I cure each coat for 45 seconds I ended up doing three coats on camera and then I did an additional coat off camera which is for coats total it seems like a lot, but because I apply them so thinly it actually doesn’t look very thick on the nail at all, which is a positive.I had a comment about this and one of my last videos so I kind of wanted to touch on it a bit in this video opie I and gel ish products work very well together, jellyfish has advertised that their base and top coats can be used with other gel polish brands and opie requires you to cure their polish with an LED lamp and their instructions allow the use of non opie lamps, so as long as you have an LED lamp, you are able to cure opium polishes you don’t have to go to the store and get an opie I branded LED lamp do you know what I’m saying, as long as you have an LED lamp, you’re good, so the combination here is fine, it has turned out great for me over the years I’ve never had a problem gel ish always comes through with pretty much any brand that I use whenever I use a gel ish foundation structure gel and top coat and say I sandwich another brand’s gel polish in between, I’ve never had issues so I don’t know I’ve been.Doing this, for years on myself and I don’t have lifting I don’t have any reactions I haven’t created any allergies for myself, if you feel like you’re afraid to mix gel polish brands I just do research, and now I’m gonna stop talking for a bit and I’m just gonna let you enjoy watching me paint my nails because I find this so satisfying and I know that I’m not the only one.Mhm mhm mm mm.Are. Hmm, mm mm mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm, mm mm.Hmm, hmm, mm mm mm mm.So now it’s time for topcoat and today I’m using a gel ish matte topcoat, you can kind of see that it’s not like a traditional clear topcoat, it kind of has a milky look to it, this will not only seal the nail polish but it will give that matte effect that I’m looking for I’m applying two coats of this and curing it for 45 seconds after each coat.Hmm, mm mm mm, mm, mm mm, my my.Desired look I’m taking another cotton pad with my c&d nail surface cleanser and I’m wiping my nails clean of that sticky residue that’s left behind from my topcoat and I’m left with perfectly matte nails now to finish everything off I’m massaging my cuticle’s with some cuticle oil to rehydrate them I will link the one that I use in the description box below and then I’m going to wipe off any excess oil from my nail plates so that I can get that full matte effect for my after shot.