My Bytch Blog

It's been six whole months since I've journeyed to the land of natural nails. I didn't know what to expect and how to get what I wanted. I took every piece of advice I could find on the Internet, I scoured every picture offering "HOW TO" on it on Pinterest and followed every nail blog to find the secret to the success I so desperately wanted. Now six months later down this path I have accomplished the very goal I have set out to do. Oddly enough it was a turning point in my journey that I started having success. But before I go into all that here is where my nails are today Now for those of you have been following my blog I want to bring to your attention my ring finger. There is a crest looking dark spot on the nail. That is the indention that the false nails made when I took them off six months ago.  See the same crest near my cuticles. This is a picture of my nails when I first started my journey. They were weak, thin and could bend backwards w...

Okay it's been three months since I started this journey. I had decided to stop being a slave to my fake nails and go all natural. For better or worse, I wanted to stop putting so many chemicals in and on my body and just let nature take it's course. Having said that, I knew I was in for a rough ride. For starters, I have been wearing solar/acrylic nails since I was sixteen years old. I now have a 16 year old daughter of my own, so you do the math...I will not help.  Anyway, The first two months were hard. My nails were so thin and weak that I could actually bend what little nail I had backwards without pain. So I cut my nails down to the quick and decided to start new. I first started with using Sally Hansen's Hard as Wraps but found out that they have formaldehyde in it. So I changed. I over to Nail-Aid's Keratin and 3 Minute Artificial. It is made in America and does not use formaldehyde and does NOT test on animals.  So, I saw little to no improvement...

No, my five wonderful readers, I have not forgotten about you. I went camping! Yes, yours truly went into the woods and camped. Actually I drove through the woods to a cabin. But before you say that's not real camping. Let me elaborate. It was a one room cabin, no running electricity, no running water, no restroom. See...that is camping.  And before you say "ewww" there was an outhouse down the dirt road for us to use. Now you can say ew.  Really it wasn't so bad.  We camped out in Hermit Park by Estes Park Colorado .  So we were out there for 4 nights, 5 days. That's a lot when you have to ration water, keep your own food cold in the cooler (which this wasn't too hard since there was still snow on the ground) and figure out lighting at night. Now in all fairness, the cabin had propane lighting and a stove with a heater, Not too bad.  Why am I telling you this and what does this have to do with nails? I'll tell you.  As you ...

Well, it's been sixteen days since my last post and well I can honestly say that I am totally disappointed. I thought that I would see some sort of growth but I haven't. What's worse is that my nails are so thin and weak that I had to actually cut some of my nails because they tore. Not because they grew. They were weak to begin with but at least they feel a little better. I mean I can now take a shower and the hot water doesn't hurt my fingernails. I am also a bit perplexed at the my second to the last finger. If you look close you can see the part of the nail that had solar on it and the amount of growth but my nail never got longer and this is not one of the one's that I had to trim. Things that make you go hummmm.  So here are my nails. I have been using the Nail-Aid Keratin for 16 days. It says 3 days growth but in three days I saw no growth. I have been receiving e-mails and comments suggesting that I use the O.P.I. Nail Strengthening but I refuse. ...

I have had the flu for the past week which offered me the opportunity to spend time with my nails. Turn a negative into a positive, right? Well, after my last post I thought about the products that I was using to try to get my nails to grow.  My Pinterest account  Jennipher Dallas  has been getting a lot of "likes" and repins. My board 'Nails I wish I had'   has especially been getting a lot of attention. One picture in particular has had over 300 likes/repins since my last blog. The picture is of the OPI Nail Envy Nail Strengthener. I did look up OPI and although they do not do animal testing but there is formaldehyde in it.  When you're sick you think about how you got sick and what you need to do to get better. So this got me thinking about the stuff in the products that I use. Formaldehyde has been linked with Cancer . Now, I'm not going to go into to all that stuff and preach about it. Everyone has to make their own decisions. But I decided t...

It had been three days since I have removed my nails and coated them with Sally Hansen's Hard as Wraps nail covering. Now the directions say to take off the polish after three days and restart the process all over again with two (2) new coats. When they say that you need to remove the polish after three days and start over, they mean it. Here is what happens on the third day, prompting you to remove the polish. My nails with the initial tear on the polish. The polish starts to lift and tear off. It started with a small uplift on the side of my nails and I pulled off the rest. Surprisingly, the whole thing came off without having to use nail polish remover.The problem with that, though, is that my nails underneath are still very thin and weak.  In this picture the nail is bent. It's a little hard to see it but I am bending my nail. The weak condition of my nails has continued and I see no real change to them . The next picture is of  the top of my nail, showing the te...

So I've decided to take off my Solar nails and go all natural. Well, as much "natural" as I can. This is what my nails looked like before I decided to take them off. It had been about two to three weeks since I had them put on. So you can see the ridge widen from the cuticle. I took them off at home and did not go into the salon. You can do that and around here it costs about $10-$15 to have them do that but I chose to do it myself to see if I could without hurting myself. I used this stuff that I bought over at Sally's Beauty Supply. It works really fast and it helps if you put some one a cotton ball, get some aluminum foil and wrap your nails for about 10-15 minutes each. This does take a lot of time but you do it at home for free. You can go to a nail salon and have them remove the nails but they do the same process except they have their electric nail file that remove. them faster.   As you can see, my nails are very weak and damaged. I...

For years my nails have been thin, weak and bendy. I even went to a dermatologist for help. Of course, she wasn't any help. After years of trying everything and being disappointed, I finally decided to go see a doctor. It took a lot for me to do that. I was hopeful and ready to renew my faith in modern medicine. She took one look at my nails and said "Some people are just born with weak nails." I was devastated. Here I was reaching out, hoping against hope that there would be a pill or cream or nail solution that would help me. Instead I got "just born that way." Well, thanks a lot Lady Gaga. I could have told her that and saved myself $75.00 for the office visit.  I've been watching this Youtube Channel called Love4Nails. This lady has been showing her nail routine and I'm interested. Here's the particular video I like. I want to try this method but of course I have to take off my solar nails. I have capping my nails with solar and ac...

Hi my wonderful 5 readers. I have been very bad and not posting as much as I should have. Well, here's a quickie update. Dad's doing better. He's at home relaxing and not dead...always a relief. I've been working a lot. Have a lot of business happening which is always a good thing. I am, again, going back to Isagenix. I'm going to try to stick with it this time. I, unfortunately, gained back everything I lost. So, I am looking to start slow and go the distance...endurance not speed. Blah Blah Blah and all that good stuff. Really I'm trying to lose weight because I feel old. I bet you thought I was going to say fat. Nope. I actually don't feel fat, as if fat itself was a feeling. I do feel old and with that I have noticed a few fun things.  Boy this old age stuff just creeps up on you. Here I sit at my computer listening to Neil Diamond's Cracklin' Rosie! I'm in my forties (early), not sixties. Oh well, I guess I'm going to be one of thos...