Throughout my whole life, I've struggled with unhealthy nails. They've always been unable to grow very long without breaking, peeling, or cracking. At the beginning of 2016, I stumbled across Simply Nailogical's nail art videos on YouTube and was amazed to see how long and healthy Cristine's nails looked. Cristine often praises Bliss Kiss Simply Pure™ cuticle oil for her healthy nails. If you check out Bliss Kiss' Instagram page, they're regularly reposting pictures of successful improvements after using their cuticle oil.
Keep in mind that cuticle oil doesn't help the nail to grow faster, but rather what it does is hydrate your nails to help prevent breakage, which keeps them strong and healthy. The reason why Simply Pure™ does such a fantastic job at helping nail growth is because of the oils that are used. According to Anna of Bliss Kiss, "Only two molecules are small enough to move through the 100 layers of keratin that make up your nails—water and sebum (our body oil). My research has shown that jojoba is almost identical in molecular structure to sebum." [source].
This product seemed too good to be true, so of course I wanted to try it. $6 for a cuticle oil pen doesn't sound so bad, but after you add $9 shipping and convert that into Canadian dollars, you're looking at almost $20 for one pen.
Feeling down about how much it cost for such a small amount of this miracle elixir, I looked for a knockoff recipe. I came across one by Epic Nail Time, which I didn't quite follow to the T. However, these are the ingredients that I did use:
4oz/118ml Jojoba Oil
4oz/118ml Grape Seed Oil
1/2C Olive Oil
3 drops of Tea Tree Oil
You should be able to find most of these ingredients at the grocery store. I found all of the ingredients in the all-natural, healthy living aisle in my local Loblaws (except for the tea tree oil, which I already had at home). I currently store the batch that I made in a large hair colour applicator bottle that I got from Sally Beauty, and fill empty nail oil pens that I purchased off of AliExpress with the mixture.
I apply this mixture to the skin around my nails at least once a day if I'm pressed for time, but I really try to use it at least three times a day. Cuticle oil isn't an overnight fix for unhealthy nails, but is something that needs to be used on a regular basis for a while in order to see the best results. I used to get really nasty breaks on my thumbnails that started near the nub, and almost stretched halfway across the nail. After using cuticle oil for about a month the splits went away completely.
I've been using cuticle oil for about nine months now, and my nails have never looked healthier or longer. If you don't believe me, here are my progress pictures below. You'll be able to see just how much of a difference cuticle oil has made in my nails. People always have to ask me if my nails are real or not because of how long and healthy they are now!
October 3, 2016. Look at how long they are! And so much healthier. I really kept trying to remember to use my cuticle oil more often and you can see the improvement.
November 27, 2016. This is one of the most recent pictures of my naked nails. Unfortunately I didn't get any other naked pictures of them before *gulp* the accident... I tried picking up a huge box when I was shopping and broke my middle nail way down to the nub. And on my picture hand! I would have maybe shrugged it off it happened to my right hand, but it happened to the hand that I take pictures of. Regardless, you can see how much healthier my nails look. They're extremely long, possibly the longest that they've ever been, and they're no longer peeling. And if you look at my thumbnail, you can see how long it's grown too! I never took my nail pictures with my thumbnail in the frame because of those terrible horizontal breaks. I no longer get those horrible breaks though, and my thumbnail is now almost as long as my other nails!
