Why Base Coat is Important For Your Nails & Your Life

Some nail color stories are so good you’d think they were made up, like this one from my friend Carolyn. But, as the day is long and my favorite nail color is red, I swear the following story is completely true:

“The day before my wedding, my matron of honor, Dena, and I got a French Manicures for the big day. Dena is a busy mother of two pre-schoolers and was working for a large technology and information company. I was working for a large financial services company.

Dena is also my best friend since first grade. We’ve kept our friendship going through different colleges, living states apart, men, children, and stressful professions. We were really enjoying this time together with just the two of us to catch up on each other’s lives.

As our finger nails dried, we noticed that we each chose a slightly different shade of white for our nail tips. When we turned over our nail polish bottles to read each name we couldn’t believe how perfectly they matched our lives in that moment.

Dena's color was Bubble Bath. She and her husband had left the kids in North Carolina with Grandma for a sorely needed get-away for the wedding weekend. My color? Ball and Chain! We were indeed living like our nail colors.”

Bubble Bath or Ball and Chain. All is possible when you’re living like your nail color.

In a previous article I gave an overview of my four steps to doing your nails and living like your nail color. With each step you are not only taking care of your nails, you’re taking care of you.

Step One to doing your nails and living like your nail color was Get Naked – your nails, that is. Take off old polish, trim, file, push back your cuticles. If you use a little scrub to exfoliate and then moisturize, your hands or feet will feel great.

It’s a great way to stay in touch with the true you by asking yourself: What’s 1 thing I’ve done recently I feel good about and why?

But before you pick a polish color to wear and live by, it’s important to protect your naked nails. That’s Step Two of living like your nail color: Protect Yourself, otherwise known as put some base coat on those naked nails, girlfriend, before you put on nail polish!

As a good nail tech knows, a base coat can strengthen nails, prevent discoloration from polish, and help reduce chipping, peeling and splitting. Some even have “ridge filler” to fill in any unevenness and create a smoother surface. It only takes a few minutes, too.

Before you apply base coat make sure your nails are clean and dry. What I like to do is do a quick wipe with a cotton ball of nail polish remover. Then put a layer of base coat on each nail and give it time to dry. Often after a few minutes it’s dry but feels a little tacky, which is the perfect setup for polish to adhere.

Funny thing is putting on base coats to protect your nails is just like life. If you skip this step or take a shortcut, you pay the price with splitting, cracking nails.

Which made me wonder – If base coat is critical to having healthy, happy nails then what’s critical for a healthy, happy life? Whoa, now that’s a big question from a simple bottle of base coat!

There are as many ways to live a healthy, happy life as there are people, so the question made me think deeper about what healthy, happy people have in common. I’m no clinical psychologist but I have watched my share of Dr. Phil, Oprah and reality TV.

It seems to me that from watching the crazies and feeling crazy myself that there’s one question we could all benefit from being able to answer: What do I want?

I think one reason we hesitate to have an answer to this question is because it can feel like Charlton Heston playing God asking us in low, booming voice: “What…do…you…want?” Be careful of your answer because whatever it is, you’re going to live with it…for…the…rest…of…your…life.

The flip side is that if we don’t answer that question proactively in some way we’ll be feeling like Lily Tomlin who said “I always wanted to be somebody, just wish I had been more specific.”

So, here’s a way to scale down this big question and make it more manageable: While putting on base coat, ask yourself...What’s one thing I want? Just one thing in any area of your life – your career, business, relationships, health, or well-being.

Ever been thinking of someone one morning and they call or send an e-mail later that day? Crazy, isn’t it? Well, crazy things often happen when you get clear on what you want, too.

People, resources, and ideas start showing up in your life in all kinds of ways to help you get what you want - an idea is sparked from a casual conversation, a colleague introduces you to someone via e-mail who has the expertise you need, or you stumble upon a website that contains information to spur you along.

According to the movie and book The Secret this is called the Law of Attraction. I call it fabulous! I’ll take all the help I can get to make my dreams come true. How about you?

Obviously you need to know what you want before you have a chance of getting it. But nothing happens until you make a move.

Here’s where the right nail color can help. Now that you have on base coat, the next step to living like your nail color is to pick a polish. But don’t just pick any old color. Make your polish really work for you.

I’ll show you next time with Step Three of living like your nail color!

As an author, speaker, and co-host of the “Girlfriend We Gotta Talk!” radio show, Mary Foley aims to inspire more sanity, confidence, and fun in every woman’s life. Her latest book Live Like Your Nail Color Even If You Have Naked Nails will be released fall 2009. Wanna know more? Go to www.LiveLikeYourNailColor.com

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