Nail disaster and how I fixed it!

I am a total nail varnish addict, and I'm really lucky that my nails have always remained in good condition. As well as wearing A LOT of nail varnish of various shades and colours over the years, I have made sure I have taken care of my hands and nails to make sure they stay in good condition.

Despite this being the case, I made a total rookie mistake recently, and the trouble it took me to rectify the mistake has inspired this week's beauty post! I recently bought some yellow nail varnish (I had a pic but cannot find it, think I must have deleted it off my Blackberry *eye roll*) which I was dying to use. I had ran out of basecoat but thought 'It's a light colour, it will be fine' - It was not fine! This is what I did to my nails....

Yup, I made them yellow and made them look like the nails of some old man who has spent his life smoking and drinking in old man pubs - (I am aware in the grand scheme of things this is a small problem, but it was still rubbish).

So, I decided to turn the negative into a positive and find out if there was anything I could use to get rid of the yellow on the cheap. There are so many beauty tips and hints on the internet it is crazy! So I read up on some cheap and easy (well I thought it would be easy) ways to get rid of yellow nails.

Apparently the key to this is a common household product -

Most of the sites I found recommended lemon juice so I rummaged trough my baking cupboard and got some out. I had a look at a few other suggestions and this is what I ended up doing:

• Obviously, I removed all traces of nail varnish with remover (this was done prior to photos)
• I washed my hands and nails in warm soapy water and scrubbed them with a nail brush.
• I first tried soaking my nails in warm water mixed with the lemon juice (this didn't really make a visible difference) so I went back to google for other methods.
• I then tried wetting cotton pads with pure lemon juice and wrapping them over my nails, leaving them for a while. I think this helped a little.
• Another site suggested making a paste with baking soda & lemon juice and using the paste with a buffer - so I tried this - it took some time but it made quite a big difference. 
• I then soaked my nails in pure lemon juice for a good while, dried them off and buffed my nails until they were no longer yellow

Result - 

 

 It really did work, but it took a looooooooooong time so my best advice to you would be always used basecoat, even if you think the colour wont stain, there is still a danger that it will. If you love nail varnish as much as me, you should take care of your nails!!!!