Let's Talk Moisture & Snow, No, Did Someone Say Snow!!!

Happy Sunday, 

Where do the weekends go?  I don't get it, how does Monday get here so fast, aye, yi, yi and we don't even have The Walking Dead on Sundays either now until Feb. 8, One-Five.  It's okay tho'.  I hope everyone had a groovy weekend and has a fantabulous rest of the night. I have Miss Betty sleeping at my feet on the couch and we have the movie, Heathers, on, so I am  cozy, comfy & happy.  I haven't watched Heathers in forever.  I've always loved this movie, it came out my senior year in high school.  I truly am an old Fogie, lol.  I did my nails today, didn't do snowmen, still did Crotchety Old Man Winter nails.  I didn't feel like painting the snowmen today and doing much art, so, I did decals.  My nails are towards the end of the post today.  

Today I got pics of the hand, nail & cuticle moisture products I use to do this post.  I wanted to get how I do it up as soon as I could since it is Icky Winter time now and that old fart sure does do a number on our skin making us cold and dry, mean old man, Winter, (shakes fist).  Now we get to talk MOISTURE, so very important for healthy and happy nails, cuticles and hands. Ignore my horribly nail polish addict yellow stained nails.  I never ever bother with whitening my nails.  I always have polish on, so, I don't care that they are stained.  On to the moisture talk.  The pic below is my hand and nails after I was finished with my "moisture maintain, I like that "moisture maintain", for referring to keeping it all hydrated.  I'll caption the pics with my moisture maintain.

Happy & Healthy hands, nails & cuticles.

The cuticle oils I use, the one on the left, my friend, Leslie, made for me, I love it :)  Thanks, Leslie, if you are reading this, I love it, CND Solar Oil, this is my favorite oil and the smell, it smells like almonds, yum ;) , California Mango Mend oil, I love this one too, it smells really good too 

The first step I do is a cuticle oil, any of the three above, I use.  Brush it on around the cuticle to apply it.  I always let it sit for a few minutes then rub it in to my cuticles really good, it will absorb nicely as long as you didn't put too much oil on when it was applied. You don't need much, a little goes a long way.  For all of the stuff I use, you do not have to use a lot of product at all, a little really does go a long way.  

This is with the cuticle oil before rubbing it in. I forgot to take a pic of after rubbing it in.

 After the cuticle oil, I apply a cuticle balm. Again, with these, a little goes a really long way.  The balms I have are in the pic below.  

Lush Lemony Flutter, I love, love, love this, finally got it for Christmas, it works amazing, Burt's Bees Lemon Butter Cuticle Cream, I have been using this for years, it's my standby cuticle balm, I love this too.  My Dollish Polish Cuticle Balms, another one I wanted to try and got these as a gift too, yay.  I got the 12 pack sampler pack and will definitely be ordering some more of these in a couple scents, these are amazing too.

This is the amount of any of my balms that I use, this I use for all 10 nails and even this amount, I could decrease this a tad for doing all nails.

Balm on my nails to be rubbed in.

My nails after the balm was rubbed in.  See how happy and hydrated they are, my cuticles are smiling in this picture ;)

The last step in my moisture maintain is hand creme or hand chap as I call it is applied. The pic below are the hand cremes, butters, etc. that I use.  I do also have some Bag Balm and a couple local beeswax balms and cremes that I didn't take a pic of.
 

Moonlight Path Body Butter, another, made by Leslie, that I absolutely love, it's really nice, J.R. Watkins Hand Creme, C. Booth Body Butter, Palmers Cocoa Butter Formula, Jergens Body Cream, Burt's Bees  Almond Milk Hand Creme, another old standby for me and Mango Mend, this smells great too. Some are lighter than others.  I like to have a combo of heavy and lighters creams, balms, butters for different seasons, day, night, etc.

This is how much product I use to rub into both hands.

All rubbed in, nails, cuticles and hands are all very happy and hydrated, yay!

 And, that's my maintain moisture routine.  Moisture is so important to skin and nails staying healthy and strong.  It's important to drink a lot of water to keep your nails and skin healthy and hydrated as well.  I do this several times a day, not all of them at once all the time, but, here and there depending on where I am at.  At work I always apply hand chap after washing my hands and several other times throughout the day.  In the evenings and on the weekends is when I will do the three steps above several times when I have more time to spend rubbing stuff in.  I have moisturizers at home, at work, in my purse and my car.  No matter where I go I can always put some happy in my hands, yay!  I hope that this was helpful and you got some good tips.  I am going to post about my cuticle removal, hand/nail scrubs in a separate post.  When I started my blog I did do a nail, cuticle, hand care post,  and want to do them again now, but, individually.  Going to try for one a weekend for now.  Hope you dig them.

I didn't do the snowmen nails I was going to today.  I just didn't feel like taking the extra time to do nail art, so, I did snowflake decals and I like them.  I have a lot of decals and do love putting them on still even tho' I am doing more nail art which I didn't before, but, I am so loving doing nail art, it's so much fun to do your own nails, it makes me happy :)  Here's my snowflakes with some white polish dotted on for more snow.  This is the only snow I care to see.  I am so not a Winter lover.  I can't stand being cold, the cold just hurts, shudder. I do love snowflakes tho', they are so pretty. 

I used a base of Bonder, two coats of Essie "Strut Your Stuff" and one coat of ILNP "My Private Rainbow" (linear topcoat), a Melly Mix on my accents) and a coat of Seche Vite quick dry on top of that.  No bottle shots this post.

Strut Your Stuff, way more green, this is more of a bright middle shade of aqua, it's really pretty in real life, wish I knew how to get an accurate color pic of some of these and I am so not technical either, LOL

 That's all I have for today, my loves.  I leave you with some too cute for words pictures of our baby bear Miss Betty kitty.  She's so freaking cute, I love her face so much.  Just look at her :) 

Isn't she just the cutest little cat.  I love her so much. 

Polish & Purrs,

Melly