Remove all traces of old enamel by moistening a cotton or gauze pad with the remover of your choice. Press the pad onto the nail plate, hold for a few seconds, then swipe toward the free edge. Change the pad often as the remover cannot perform well if it is saturated with old enamel. Dark pigmented enamels are the hardest to remove, and the old polish may get on your skin or underneath the free edge. If this happens, wrap a small piece of cotton on the end of the orangewood stick, saturate it with remover and clean the enamel from the cuticle line and under the free edge.
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Use a 240-grit file to remove length or to perfect the free edge by filing from the outside corner to the center of the nail plate. Never saw back and forth across the free edge as it can disrupt the nail plate layers and lead to splitting and peeling. The ideal shape of the free edge should mirror the shape of the cuticle, i.e.: an oval cuticle = an oval free edge.
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To seal the free edge, use the 3-way buffer: black to refine, white to semi-shine and gray to finish. This will seal the layers of the free edge to further prevent splitting or peeling.
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Apply cuticle remover, oil or lotion all around the cuticle area if you so desire, then immerse the nails in the soaking dish for no more than 3 minutes. If you are performing this procedure on yourself, soak one hand at a time and proceed to the next step. Perform the procedure on the other hand. Soaking for more than 3 minutes will fully saturate the nail plate, causing it to swell. Once the plate returns to its normal shape, any polish that is applied will crack and chip.
If your nails are already dry and brittle, perform a hot oil manicure instead.
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Remove the fingers from the soaking dish, and holding the orangewood stick or metal cuticle pusher much as you would a pencil, proceed to 'push' the invisible cuticle skin from the nail plate surface back toward the 'live' tissue. Do not use downward force when performing this procedure as the nail matrix could become damaged from the aggressive force. Keep in mind that all you want to do is remove any translucent skin from the nail plate -- you do not want to break the seal between the proximal nail fold and the nail plate. Perform this procedure on all 5 fingers, then do the same on the other hand.The 'skin' you see at the cuticle line in Fig. 2 has been pushed back from the nail plate. This 'true cuticle' can be gently removed by scraping the plate with the cuticle pusher or the curette.
