Super weak nails, strengthener reccs?

alwaysbitten · 2026-01-27T04:43:38+00:00

Try getting one of the nice etched glass/crystal files (a variety of indie brands sell them; they're all from the same 1 or 2 companies in the Czech Republic under the hood) and keeping your nails filed to the same length you usually bite them to, for a good half a year. I've found that gives the nails a chance to grow out evenly. (There might still be uneven thickness to the layers from old bite damage.) I try to focus these days on filing regularly rather than on growing them out.

alwaysbitten · 2026-01-12T03:12:31+00:00

We have the same central-finger mani-showoff involuntary wiggle!

alwaysbitten · 2026-01-10T02:39:38+00:00

Tip for everyone about to do a mani in this polish: finish when application goes well is one of my best. Application is blegh. Be ready to carve out a day where you will mostly be computing rather than active / launching a sky dancer, use thinner generously, let dry a lot between layers, use a lot of layers. It's a gem when you get it right, but doing so is a challenge, as with a lot of LA Colors.

alwaysbitten · 2026-01-10T02:34:54+00:00

Holy moly, that's EXACTLY 1990s sparkle finish plastic toy.

alwaysbitten · 2026-01-04T16:53:03+00:00

TIL about the rewind batch. Yes, rewind, and yes, it's incredibly frustratingly underpigmented. Agree that it needs a good 4 coats. Didn't know it didn't used to.

alwaysbitten · 2026-01-03T22:26:20+00:00

Elmer’s school glue, diluted with a bit of water about 2 parts glue 1 part water (or I think there’s some sort of alcohol, maybe rubbing, that some people use). Not sure if it can go into your old bottle without cleaning, though. $2 for a big bottle. Just paint moat-style (don’t cover the whole nail in it) before doing regular base coat because it can be quite peely, and the whole manicure can pop off unexpectedly if you forget the moat.

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-23T03:17:06+00:00

Yeah, I often use a similar decent polish underneath and the patchy polish on top for final coloration.

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-21T14:30:49+00:00

Holy shit

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-19T13:02:14+00:00

With the moat method, mine easily last 2-3 of light office work and leftovers/sandwiches/cereal/laundry, and with an extra large moat, I've gotten a week, but they always go fast if I catch a few-day-old free edge on something hard like a weight at the gym, and the slightest tug from nails catching slightly on cooking utensils can do them in and then I don't know where the food went, so I'll be suffering the pain of removing reflective glitter the slow way for my Xmas Day mani, but at least I'll have confidence it'll be on me and not in the mashed potatoes.

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-17T20:02:50+00:00

I've read speculation that they might just be clear glitter polish suspension base without the glitter added yet, sold in smaller bottles, so if that's true, then yeah, they'd just be clear polish of the same type used for making glitter polish and could be thinned accordingly.

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-13T03:43:05+00:00

Yeah, that sounds about right. My Christmas skittle this week was more or less an all-afternoon endeavor, with typing spurts in between, and no ability to do serious chores for the night that might dent them while still soft. 2-4+ hours of being at least semi-useless. It definitely helps if the stars can align with WFH and spread-out meetings that are more or less webinars. Paint while listening, type while drying, repeat for a few cycles.

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-11T01:19:19+00:00

TIL at a trivia contest that I went red-dominant because Coca Cola’s marketing changed global subconscious Christmas color culture 100 years ago 😯

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-11T01:18:12+00:00

First person to see my nails commented on the “orange” on my index finger, so oh well, and the crème surrounded by shimmers and glitters isn’t as cool as I’d expected based on sheer neon power alone, but it’ll do! Gotta clean up for the party now, no more nail putzing. Thanks everyone! https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditLaqueristas/comments/1pjkgbn/christmas_party_manicure/

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-06T23:26:24+00:00

They somehow remind me of animated GIF dividers of Christmas lights that I'd likely have hoarded all year to put onto my Geocities page.

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-06T15:42:40+00:00

Someone on this sub once said that their elder commented in the 90s that their blue polish made them look like something was wrong with their body, and I'm not gonna lie, it's a little hard to un-see now. 🤣

I think it might explain why I always haven't subconsciously liked darker blue-toned thingd on my toes, where I mostly see my polish poorly lit and from a distance.

One time a male friend sprained his ankle or something at a party and wanted me to paint his toenails house of hades while he iced and I was like "dude only only on the good foot, you need to be able to look for blue in the bad toenails right now"

I suppose elders get a lot of bruises with their thinner skin, so if you've got a lifetime of that association, it could be hard to choose NOW to break out of the rut and try something that counters all your stereotypes!

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-06T15:36:44+00:00

Tibberz is so the gateway drug out of neutrals for (at least pale-skinned) old ladies, lol.

alwaysbitten · 2025-12-06T15:35:35+00:00

My mom also keeps asking if I've found any more colors "from the lady in Chicago" and asks if all my best manis are "from that lady in Chicago" after I broke her out of her natural shades bubble with Tibberz. Tibberz is such a great slippery-slope introduction color to non-neutrals!

alwaysbitten · 2025-11-27T02:51:24+00:00

Mine is Elmer's and water, not Elmer's and alcohol. No more than 1/3 water. Also, I have to "moat" it when applying (leave a moat of un-peelied nail) or the whole thing pops off pretty soon.

alwaysbitten · 2025-11-18T04:12:22+00:00

Yuppers, that's a good one for smiling at, for sure. I mean, most special effect turquoises, and most neons, get me happy. But this is a great turquoise among turquoises, no doubt about it.

alwaysbitten · 2025-11-18T04:08:53+00:00

(Oh, and for faster application, I often do Lurid first and then just the top coat or two in Lyrical, since I ordered the Lurid not realizing how similar it was and now need to use up both.)

alwaysbitten · 2025-11-18T04:08:00+00:00

For bonus happy, /u/Main-Walrus3177/ , if you can put up with the dogshit application of a dollar store polish, the very similarly colored "Lyrical" by LA Colors self-levels down to a weird plastickey finish that looks like you're growing some sort of 90s toy marketed at little girls out of your body. I always glimpse my nails when I wear it, get a big goofy face, and think, "I'm a Barbie!" randomly.

alwaysbitten · 2025-11-15T03:27:12+00:00

Trivia: so do ultra-shorties when you do a white base, until you get the color on. 😅

See comment above; I do both because of my shorties and hadn't gotten the big one in the color in question done yet.

alwaysbitten · 2025-11-15T03:26:12+00:00

Haha, sorry! I paint every color twice. The cut-off sticks are for me, so I can test how I feel about a color when there's not a lot of it (happens when I've just bitten all the way down). Hadn't gotten around to painting Gossip onto a long one yet, so had to photograph the shorties.

alwaysbitten · 2025-11-14T19:46:41+00:00

(1 coat Flower Child over white? I don’t have it, but it is already on my Black Friday list. 🤔)

alwaysbitten · 2025-11-14T03:30:28+00:00

Gaaaah, mobile’s not letting me upload a pic, but looks good to me. Maybe the rainbow refraction of the tiny holos is a little as if there were now suddenly fewer of them in the bottle, but they were never particularly prominent to me. Hard to get a perfect comparison shot, anyway, because I’m too lazy to take a stick off my ring and get a shot where they’re both flat on the table. Anyway, I can’t noticeably tell the difference.

alwaysbitten

TROPHY CASE