Favorite homemade cleaner

I will readily admit that I have spent hundreds, no thousands, of dollars in my lifetime on cleaning products that smell good, have pretty labels, look cool in addition to being very overpriced. They all contain propaganda in their labeling of one type or another. I won't go into detail on which brands were the most misleading and disappointing because I'd be typing for days and this is my birthday and I have other things to do. My quest to find an "all purpose" cleaner that works, is cheap and has a tolerable smell has been years long. I've had marginal success with laundry solutions of which I have settled on a rather strong mixture to combat the extremely high mineral and pollutant content of our water here in Las Vegas. I do like making my own and it's works better than any commercially available product but the cost is higher than your basic homemade version because I have to add oxyclean to get good results. It's a messy proposition so I tend to make massive batches to last 6 months or more.
My homemade stain remover isn't really homemade. It's actually Dawn dishwashing liquid. It does work better than anything else I've tried and I don't have to buy a special product for a single purpose. In our water climate, the mixture of Dawn and peroxide does nothing for armpit stains or yellowed whites as touted on Pinterest but it does remove spots of grease and makeup. I have found that a heavy concentration of super hot water, half a cup of Dawn and a cup of bleach removes some of the mineral buildup in white bath linens but you have to follow that up with a white vinegar rinse to remove the soap residue.
I have my own recipes for beauty products that I like very much and they are super cheap. Coconut oil is the best moisturizer if you apply it generously to wet skin right after showering. I don't add anything to it for fragrance because everything makes me sneeze or gives me hives. I buy powdered bentonite clay on Ebay from Michigan for my special weekly facial mask. I pulverize oatmeal in big batches for use in this mask as well as for bath soak and my waffle recipe. I use a teaspoon each of clay, oatmeal, wildflower honey and greek yogurt and add milk until I get a smooth pudding-like paste. I use a small natural bristle basting brush to spread it over my face, neck and chest. I use this once a week removing it with tepid water and resist the urge to apply moisturizer afterward because it's actually overkill. It provides intense soothing, moisturizing and nourishing support for my aging skin. I've perfected this mask through trial and error and found it to be the very best one yet. Been using it for about a year now.
I have come to love the vinegar and Listerine foot soak if for no other reason than it really does make callous management easier and it's the fastest way to conquer a toenail fungus (which I am prone to because I abused my toenails with acrylics for years). I add a little lavender Castille liquid soap for fragrance and to combat how drying it actually is for your skin. I then proceed to slather my feet with coconut oil and cover with large baggies for about 20 minutes. It all helps.
Now for my actual favorite homemade cleaning solution. I saved the best for last. Truly. I was searching for a way to clean my laminate flooring without leaving a streaky, sticky residue. I found a few recipes on Pinterest but the best one ended up being a combination of Pinterest recipes and manufacturers recommendations. Here it comes...Get yourself an empty gallon milk jug because you will want to have this on hand for frequent use. The original recipe called for equal parts water, white vinegar and rubbing alcohol with a squirt of lemon essential oil. That recipe was tweaked by manufactures that recommend a lower alcohol concentration and no essential oils but rather actual lemon juice. I've made this nine ways to Sunday and finally figured out the perfect balance to satisfy my multipurpose brain. Here you have my tried and tested result. To the gallon jug add the following items in no particular order: 2 quarts of water, 1 and 1/2 quart of white vinegar, 16 ounces of 70% isopropyl alcohol and one teaspoon of Dawn dish washing liquid. You can add half a cup of lemon juice from a bottle of concentrate but I don't think it works as well. Here is what I do for the lemon additive. I quarter two plumb fresh lemons and throw them in my Ninja blender and pulse it until the lemons are completely pureed. I have a permanent coffee filter that doesn't fit my cup at a time coffee maker that gets a workout as a strainer for lots of things but works exceptionally well for this. You can use a fine tea strainer too but you don't want any pulp to clog your sprayer. It takes a while for all the juices and oils from the lemon to strain through so be patient. I set mine in a large measuring cup held above the liquid line with a skewer and just let it drip for half an hour. I add this highly fragrant liquid to the rest of my ingredients in the gallon jug. Don't shake it up. Invert the jug a couple times and let it mix itself. Fill a spray bottle and get ready to be amazed with yourself. For floor cleaning, just use a Swiffer with the dry cloth. Spray floors in 3x3 foot sections and swipe until it starts to dry on it's own. No streaks, no residue and no grime left behind. Change your cloth as it gets soiled. I can usually get about 200 square feet out of each one but I'm combating the slobber monster Sully so you may use fewer. I keep a spray bottle full and a Swiffer handy just to keep up with the dog. Okay so now that you are thoroughly blown away, here is the most amazing things about this cleaning solution. It works fantastically on mirrors and windows or anything else that's glass. It's gentle enough for regular use on eye glasses with expensive coatings too. I use it to clean my stainless steel appliances because it removes greasy finger prints and films leaving nothing but shine behind. There are a myriad of uses for this cleaner because it's strong yet gentle and natural. The real kicker is that Dawn dish washing liquid repels insects like ants, spiders and other creepy crawlies. It also reduces fogging on bathroom mirrors and eye glasses. Most of the ingredients are in fact insect repellant so if you have children and pets, it's a much safer alternative to dangerous pesticides. It was never a consideration for me until we acquired Sully but now it's become paramount. You know how various objects in your house get touched repeatedly and you suddenly notice that they look like they've been on the front table of a kindergarten classroom? Like your printer, your cell phone, your computer desk, etc. Spray and wipe. Done. I bought a bundle of soft cotton diapers just for cleaning but you can use whatever fancy cloths you may have picked up for this purpose. Just a hint here: if you don't like the smell of lemons just use regular lemon juice from concentrate because it's less fragrant but you won't get the cleaning power that I get. Now off I go to enjoy the first day of my last year in the 40's...

Living on the edge...

Yeah yeah I know. It's been a really long time since I logged in, posted a blog and yada yada yada. I'm inconsistent. I've been immersed in school since October and I've been trying to balance life as a dog momma, a full time student and the only person interested in keeping us from starvation, or worse, being buried alive in our own stench. I had an epiphany of sorts early in the fall after a summer trip home to attend my sons wedding and meet my first grand child. We hadn't been back to Maine in almost two years and it was an eye opener. I'm still not sure whether it was the change of scenery and comparing the two very different lifestyles and surroundings or if things really had just deteriorated that much in our old home towns. I lived in the capitol of Augusta for ten years after growing up in rural northwestern Maine. It was shocking how run down and unkempt the area appears to be these days. Anywho, upon returning to Vegas and work, I felt sort of...um, depressed? I question that emotion or state of mind simply because I don't know if that's what I really felt. I felt isolated, discontent with my job(which wasn't a new feeling), generally out of sorts and I missed my family. I was in a state of despair over the fact that I finally have a grand child and will never get to see him grow up. He would never know me. I guess I felt a little desperate. Short of giving up everything we worked and sacrificed for here to move back to a climate and economy that was depressing in itself, I saw no real options. Neither of us were making the kind of money necessary to jet set back and forth between coasts and we couldn't be draining our savings. That's when I realized that I could do something about our dilemma. I could change careers! Sounded legit at the time. So I started my long journey of researching lucrative careers that offered high pay, flexible scheduling and lots of freedom. It took several weeks to finally settle on something that I started learning years before and gave up. In early October I purchased a self-paced Desktop and Mobile Web Developers course and quit my job. I punched a hole in my 401k to become a full time student and change my life. You can't get ahead without taking risks right? I know that I am a financial planners nightmare but it's my money, my life took a desperate turn and I needed to take my one chance at a new career that would give me what I want out of life.
I will just tell you right now that you should never ever believe what you read when you're on a website that is trying to sell you something. They are going to pad the facts, remove any negative(i.e. truthful) reviews and lead you to believe that this is your one stop shop for your educations needs. I definitely have lots of regrets and reservations about Ed2go these days but I am making the best of a bad situation. I am spending enormous amounts of time learning about each subject from online tutorials, websites that are generous enough to give free education and youtube. Where Gatlin Online Training has let me down, I refuse to be had.
Enough about that. Around the same time, my daughter started lamenting the situation with her former dog. She had given Sully(a magnificent and docile pure bred Rottweiler) up for adoption. She liked to call it foster care but, in reality, she knew she'd never be able to take him back in his lifetime. The woman who cared for him(I use that term very loosely) had contacted her to say she was getting a new puppy and was going to bring Sully to an animal shelter if she didn't take him back. In no position to do that, she asked if I would be willing to take him if she could get him to me. Of course I said yes. I sort of didn't think she'd really be able to do that but I had a special affection for Sully and thought he would be a great companion. Well, in late November I received and email with details about his arrival via United Petsafe.
Sully has become my best bud. He is so loving and easy going. He is also the slobberyest, sheddyest 100 lbs of dog you can imagine. It's a daily battle to keep from being overwhelmed with the mess he makes. I had many lovely months of hardly having to do anything to keep the house clean. And now there is life with the dog. I don't begrudge him his doggy manliness but...damn, there is hair and dried slobber in every single conceivable space in this house. There is a small corner off to the side of my work station that isn't really big enough for anything but he sticks his head in there and drools anyway. It's also the spot where large amounts of his cast off fur balls up. Some times I just live with the mess and quell my OCD with lots of coffee. Sometimes I feel like I'm drowning in it.
It feels very strange and foreign to me to not have a job and to not even be looking. Sometimes I have a moment and think about that. I get so entrenched in course work and life that I forget that I don't have an income. I do miss money. But all this is for the best imaginable cause. At some point down the road I will be able to freelance and work from anywhere. My hubby will be able to give up his job and be my travel companion. As one may surmise, my goal isn't to find a job in my new career per se. It's to work on my own terms, taking on contract work. I am almost ready to start building websites so it won't be long before I can start building a portfolio. I have a few more weeks of PHP and then probably a month of XML before my actual paid course is complete. Then I need to get immersed in CMS and learn a few of the popular programs. I took a little hiatus during the holidays to learn Android app development but discovered that it's too much for me to handle right now.
Hubby will be rolling in shortly and I want to talk about homemade cleaning products so I will be up early tomorrow morning for that blog. 

5 Months of work will get you nowhere

I went back to work full time 5 months ago and I've had no time to do projects or experiment beyond the basics. It was more necessity than desire that drove me so here I am, working all the time, not having any fun. I've managed a few quick crafty things and some new foods but I'm really looking forward to working on the house again. I have a feeling this is going to be a long term work in progress.
I recently purchased the marble tile that will make my bathroom vanities. I'd been swooning over it for several years but at $10 a square foot, it was more than I wanted to spend when I could do so many other things for less. I tiled my kitchen counters at our Maine house and wanted oh so much to use that tile but I am so so glad I didn't. 7 months later, we decided to chuck it all and move the Vegas. The new counters and other work I did in the kitchen helped to sell the house in a really tough market but we still took a beating on the final price. Not to mention that I'd feel even worse about leaving it behind. Home Depot just dropped the price on the Emperador Cafe marble to $3 a square foot. I had to really stare at the price tag a long time before the reality hit me how drastically cheap it would be for me to buy what I needed for the two bathrooms. I spent $75 and will have plenty left over for oopses.
It's actually turning out to be a good thing that I don't have time to work on the house. The time has allowed me to really think through what I want to do to get the highest function out of our living space and end up with something beautiful as well. I had a million ideas, as usual, but I've paired them down to exactly what I want to accomplish. I've even managed to decide on the kitchen plan. That was the toughest one because my hubby and I disagreed on the look, I couldn't settle on anything and I needed to do it right the first time because we pretty much live in the kitchen.
So the bathrooms will be next when I have time, the kitchen will come after that and our outdoor kitchen will be last.
Here is a rundown of the mini adventures we've been on: We tried our hand at smoking tri tip for the first time and it's came out perfect. And amazing. I started making my own spinach hummus and rosemary crackers for snacks at work. Recipes originally from Pinterest but the hummus came out better with my own tweaks. I also had to change up the cracker recipe to suit my taste buds. Nothing major, just little secret ingredients that make it especially yummy.
I made this

with a heavy candle holder, some pretty embossed sheer fabric and modpodge.
The most exciting thing of all was going back to Maine for 5 days to attend my son's wedding and to see my first grandchild for the very first time. I got to spend precious little time with family but it was all worth it. I wish I had time off and money to go visit every six months but alas, that is not my life. I will hopefully get back there sometime early spring for another visit, longer maybe.
So that's the rather sad story of my existence at this point in my life. Not a lot going on to share but I will try to share what I manager to squeeze in.

Home made chewy granola bars!

So this was a fun Pinterest project. I had repinned a recipe some time ago and it popped into my head today at the grocery store. I used the basic quantities in her recipe but mixed it up for something that would suit my tastes better. You always start out with 3 cups of your base dry ingredient. In this case, I used quick oats. You can use differing ratios of oats with your favorite cereal. If you really like corn pops, use all corn pops. If you want variety in texture, half oats and half cereal. Whatever combination appeals to you will work. I am thinking maybe Life cereal would be good too. To your 3 cups of whatever, you add, well, whatever you like. I went nuts, literally. I used a handful each of sliced almonds, chopped pecans and dry roasted sunflower seeds. Then I added a generous handful of chopped Craisins and about the same amount of chopped dates because I love that combination. Any soft dried fruit will be fine. You can add coconut flakes, chocolate chips (I did ;), gummy bears!, just let your imagination run wild. The combinations are endless! So once you dump all your dry stuff in a big bowl, mix it together and set aside until you have your binder cooked.
The binder is a syrup that holds all these delicious bits together. If you really went hog wild, increase the amounts of binder ingredients so your chewy granola bars will be bars and not chunks. Unless of course you like chunks. Who am I to say? So you put 1/4 cup butter (NOT margarine) in a medium sauce pan. Add 1/3 cup brown sugar and 1/4 cup honey, maple syrup, agave nectar, any pure natural syrup. I did one batch with the basic honey, butter and brown sugar. I did a second batch using agave nectar. You will bring the mix to a low boil and it will start to foam. If you've made fudge, you are familiar with this. Let it boil and be foaming for two minutes then remove from heat, add a teaspoon of vanilla and stir well. In the batch that I made with agave nectar, I added a 1/3 cup of natural peanut butter after I removed it from the heat, then added the vanilla. You can be really creative with what you use in the syrup as well. That's what makes this fun. You don't need to let it cool but you do need to stabilize your bowl with a towel as you will be stirring everything together as you drizzle the syrup over you dry ingredients. Go slow. Do NOT dump the whole pot into the bowl and expect it to disperse evenly because the cereal and oats will start to absorb it immediately and it won't go well from there on out. So you slowly drizzle your hot syrup over your dry stuff, stirring to make sure everything gets a good coating. Just a heads up: don't add your chocolate chips now nor anything else that can melt from the intense heat. Sprinkle them over the mix after you've panned it and press them in . That leads me to the next step. You can choose your pan based on how thick you want your bars. It's all preference. I like mine just about the thickness of the store bought ones so I used my 9"x11" pan. Dump your mixture into the pan, no greasing needed, and firmly press everything evenly into the bottom of the pan. Let it set for 20-30 minutes then turn out, cut and store in an air tight container. You can wrap each one individually if your packing them to go or giving them as a gift. These came out so incredibly delicious.
I had a really hectic week being my first back to work. My schedule was horribly all over the place. I would have love, love, loved something that I could grab quick and eat during my drive into the city. Alas, I went hungry if I didn't have enough time to make something. I'm not much for mornings so I sit around with my coffee too long, take too long on my hair, makeup and dressing, then end up running behind. I much prefer to wake up on my own and be lazy in the morning for a couple hours. I don't mind late nights at all. With hubby's schedule, we are up 'til 1 or 2 in the morning most nights. That seems to suit me well.
So have fun whipping up different combinations of these treats. You can even add things like chia, flax or wheat germ powder to kick up the nutrition. You can keep your syrup really simple and be careful with what you add for dry ingredients to make a lower fat, low sugar alternative. They were fun and quick to make and I am enjoying one right now :)

The dry ingredients...

The boil...

The finished bars!

As you can see, I had to taste asap to make sure they weren't icky.

Have you ever wondered...

I know I'm not alone in this. I log onto Pinterest and start browsing random categories only to find these pins that tout magic callous removal using Listerine and shaving cream,  make your own Mod Podge with Elmers Glue, miracle stain remover, home made dishwasher detergent, etc. As I'm reading, I'm thinking "What kind of an idle, warped mind would dream this up and apply it to that?" I know there are people out there with way too much time on their hands who can't seem to fill it with something "productive". I put that in quotes for the simple reason that productivity is subjective, depending on who you talk to. And you know I have to try everything that sounds like it might work, if there's even the minutest amount of logic to it. 90% of the time, it doesn't work as stated but I love to go back and read the repins where people say they did it and it was AMAZING! I haven't figured out if there are multiple dimensions of reality in existence but I'm sure they are full of crap.
Here is my first case in point: Smear shaving cream (no one ever says what kind, brand, version for obvious reasons) all over your feet then soak two cloths in a 50/50 mix of Listerine and hot water and wrap your feet for 30 minutes. When you take the cloths off, you are supposed to be able to simply rub all the callouses off. There is even a word of caution on one pin that says if you follow this procedure more than once a week, it will leave you feet sore and raw. LOL! Wouldn't it actually have to do something tangible first? This is my I had to try it. The first reason is that shaving cream has skin softening properties regardless of the brand you choose. So does chicken gravy but I wouldn't soak my feet in it. Anything semi-liquid will "soften the skin" because it's wet. Anyway, reason number 2 is that podiatrists have recommended Listerine for foot odor problems for decades. It's antibacterial ingredients reduce the problems that cause stinky feet in the first place. My result was, as I'm sure you already know, minimal change. There are two things that did end up being a benefit though: the callouses were deeply softened so I got out my PedEgg and scraped off what I could remove. Mind you, again, a 30 minute soak in anything, chicken gravy included, would provide the same benefit. The other benefit was incredibly cool and minty smelling feet which I thoroughly enjoyed for a full day. I was having a bit of an odor problem from wearing actual shoes after 6 months of flip flops almost daily. Odor issue solved!
So last winter, I was rummaging through clothes that I haven't worn to decide what to toss, donate or get out and wear when I came across several white or light shirts that had armpit stains from wearing deodorant.  I hadn't been wearing them because I couldn't get the stains out. So back to Pinterest I went in search of a recipe to remove the stains and reclaim the clothing. I tried several. None of them worked. Borax, washing soda and peroxide paste did nothing. Overnight pretreatment with Dawn dishwashing liquid and peroxide did nothing. Overnight soak in dishwasher powdered detergent, Dawn and peroxide did nothing. Overnight soak in hot water and bleach made the fabric fragile and I ended up throwing the items out. Either I have armpit stains of steel or the concoctions just don't work. I am inclined to go with the latter.
So then there is the home made Mod Podge using Elmer's Glue and water. I had a seriously funny feeling that this would be sticky when dry and not protect the finish at all and I wasn't wrong. I don't recommend you do this on anything of importance. Period. I also tried the home made alcohol inks which didn't work on anything that I would do but I tried it because I wanted to try doing alcohol ink stained glass. I just broke down and bought the damn commercial alcohol in which actually did work as expected. Making your own with Rit dye and 91% isopropyl alcohol ends up being expensive unless you already have multiple colors of dye just laying around. For what it cost me, I could have bought the mega selection of the real deal. And I wouldn't have wasted money on dyes that I will never use. Next time I will skip the stain removal pins and go straight for the dye to cover the stains. Yep, you guessed it. This one peeved me a little because I fell for it believing the testimonials that stated this is exactly the same as the commercial product. Sometimes people just suck. And they already know it. They have no real life friends so they resort to duping complete strangers online.
Now the dishwasher detergent was a believable idea.  I make my own laundry detergent and love it. I use the original Dawn blue dishwasher detergent for all kinds of household "magic" and it doesn't let me down ever. I use it to pretreat fresh stains, I mix it with vinegar to clean my shower, bathtub and bathroom sinks, it cleans my jewelry to a sparkling shine when I add a few drops to super hot water and, of course, it cleans my dishes, pots and pans beautifully. I use baking soda, vinegar, borax and washing soda for lots of things too so when I read the ingredients, I thought I had another inexpensive winner. Wrong again. It didn't clean my dishes, smelled terrible when my dishwasher was running and took many, many cycles to eliminate from my brand new dishwasher. On top of that, I now have spots on the stainless steel interior that feel like pits in the finish. They should at least warn you that if you have a stainless steel interior, don't use this.
Now for my favorite Pinterest home made, home remedy, super miracle solution. Using straight peroxide as a mouth wash...If you go to the dentist regularly, talk to your hygenist about it. Have that conversation. She/he won't laugh at you but they will caution you about a few things. I've used baking soda and peroxide to brush my teeth a couple times a week for many years. No harm, no foul. The pin stated clearly that using straight peroxide twice a day as a rinse was a "secret that dentists don't want you to know about". Let me rearrange that quote for you so it's a little closer to what your dentist might want you to know, not to mention how grateful you will be to know this. The person who started this pin with the first post was a malicious liar. The quote should read "The secret that you won't want to admit to your dentist". Hydrogen peroxide reacts with oxygen, causes your taste buds to swell up and turn black. When I say black, I mean coal black. It's a condition known as black tongue and it's gross, destroys your ability to taste anything, looks horrible and doesn't just go away when you stop using peroxide as a rinse. It does nothing to whiten your teeth, as promised. It simply doesn't stay on your teeth long enough to do anything. The whiteners dentist sell are in a gel form and the gel is held in place with mouth trays so it can do what it's intended to do. People who overuse or incorrectly use teeth whitening gels can suffer from black tongue.
Of all the bogus pins I've talked about in this post, there is only one that I'd recommend even though it doesn't work like the pin assures it will. The shaving cream/Listerine combination. The stipulation I will add is that you go to a discount store or dollar store to buy cheap shaving cream and knock off Listerine. You don't need a brand name to accomplish the same end result. Get out your PedEgg and foot file to finish the job. Or...you could just stop by your local Sally Beauty Supply and pick up a bottle of Be Natural callous eliminator. It's expensive but a bottle will last you an eternity. Don't be afraid of it. It's strong medicine but it will do the trick lickity split. Keep a pan of warm water handy to wash it off after it's set 3-5 minutes. A foot file with a good amount of grit will remove any callouses that have been treated. Remember to moisturize well twice a day if you use this. Here is the bottle you'll be looking for.

Happy pinning and happy Cinco d'Mayo!

Oops! The pics I forgot

I was just browsing through my blogs and realized I never ended up posting pics of the (mostly) finished kitchen and living room. My life is always a work in progress but, for now, this is what I've done.
This was my kitchen before:

And here is where I am to date in my kitchen projects:

I'm still enormously proud and pleased with my floor tile. We have had lots of visitors and each one has expressed total disbelief at my creativity and tiling prowess. None has yet to guess that the wood-look tile isn't wood until they bend down and tap it. My hubby shows these pics to people he works with and anyone else he encounters when he has the chance and they all ask the same thing: "Does she have a business card?" I have to laugh(and cry a little) because I'd love to do this for a living and I know I have the opportunity yet my body is unwilling to set aside the effects of time so that I can get on with living.
I am still not in like (much less love) with my cabinets but I have learned a valuable lesson with home projects. If money is scarce and ideas are too plentiful, it's always best to wait until the two converge before making a move. It's much harder and more expensive to undo your mistakes than to live with what you dislike.
My first order of business when I am back to work will be the purchase of tools. I have been eyeballing a nice table saw, a router and a miter saw. Hubby keeps telling me not to buy them because they will have limited use in the long run but how else can one complete projects of this magnitude? I borrowed a table saw for quite a while and I've decided that it's better to own it than to use someone else's. My love of building things will keep the saw dust on it for many years to come.
I think I never got around to posting the pics of my laminate floor too so here are a few. I do love the ease of care and the coolness underfoot of laminate.

I ended up changing out the base trim after I finished the floor to a style that I liked better than what was there before. During the install, I figured out why they used the corner caps instead of mitering the corners. The corners of the walls aren't square, they're rounded. That was something interesting that I hadn't noticed in any of the houses we'd rented and never saw in Maine. The only square corners are the inside ones. I installed the trim with miter cuts anyway and filled the gap with white caulk which I smoothed up to the wall in a gentle slope. It actually looks a lot better than those odd little quarter round pieces that were there.
I feel pretty confident that I have finally covered all my bases but I'm sure there will be something I missed. There always is.

Polish like a pro

As with every perfect finish, what really matters are the quality of the tools and techniques you use to get there. I've decided to depart briefly from my normal home project blogs and teach you the right way to polish your toe nails. Is there a right way and a wrong way? Well, yes and no. Yes if you want them to look professionally done and for the color to last without chipping. No if you could care less how you waste your time as long as there's color on those toe nails. So it's totally up to individual choice. I've spend more than 20 years of my life as a cosmetologist and nail technician. Who better to learn the tricks of the trade from?! So here is what you will need:

From left to right is top quality base and top coat, reusable medium grit nail file, stainless steel combo cuticle pusher/scraper, pure acetone, full jaw nippers, orange wood stick, soft foam acrylic nail buffer and, optionally, a speed dry product. Now to explain these items. I've used Seche Vite base and top coat for the entire 23 years I've been in the industry. Why? It performs. You will want sturdy tools that will last, are sharp and do the job they are supposed to do without a battle. Pure acetone is very inexpensive, has multiple uses and just works quicker and better than regular polish remover. If you are going to put a solvent on your body anywhere, why not have it work faster so it's on there for a shorter amount of time? I love Orly Spritz Dry because it really does speed drying, it moisturizes your skin and smells so good. As far as polish goes, it's pretty much your choice. Whatever you love works unless it's a really really cheap stuff. My three top brands are OPI, China Glaze and Orly, in that order, but I have other brands in my stash (bucket lol). The one brand I don't ever use or buy is Essie. It's because of the shape of the bottle and the length of the brush and no other reason. It's impossible to use even half the bottle before it's useless. The same goes for Nicole by OPI. On to the process.
The first thing I usually do before polishing is a pedicure because I have the worlds worst callouses and they need constant attention. At this point, I will also take a moment to apologize for my ugly old feet. They are just that: ugly and old. I have abused them for nearly half a century and they are not taking it well. Most feet don't. I don't buy commercial soaks because I've been down that road and just couldn't get the same benefits as with home made soaks. Being in a for profit business and self-employed, it mattered what I spent on supplies and whether they worked well or just meh. This is my simple soak recipe: In a large pan I reserve only for feet, I add 1/2 cup of borax, 1/2 cup finely ground oatmeal (coffee grinder works great!) and a quick squirt of Castille liquid soap in lavender to rather hot water. I usually soak for 15 to 20 minutes then go to work grating and filing off the icky stuff. I won't bore you with the details other than to say, once I'm finished, I slather on an inexpensive cuticle remover I get at +Sally Beauty Supply  and let it set for a few minutes. I use my ss pusher to gently slide back the cuticle and the scraper side for stubborn dead skin that sticks to the nail plate. After I finish all 9 toes (yep, missing one), I use my nippers to carefully cut away any dead skin that is left. Never nip any life tissue! I'm sure I don't need to tell you that as you will figure it out if you do. Messy. I dry off my feet and apply a good lotion like +Gold Bond. After wiping the excess lotion off my toe nails, I use the same buffer I have for smoothing my acrylic nails to lightly smooth the nails. Don't go crazy with this because you don't want to shine them, you just want to remove the high ridges and take down the natural shine a little. Your nails should be pretty dry now so it's safe to clip and file them. It doesn't work well on soggy nails. Remember to file square and only smooth sharp corners. It makes for a stronger nail and prevents ingrown toenails. Now you can dampen a cotton pad with pure acetone and wipe each nail to remove any dust and oily residue because you are ready for the main event. Polish!
Start with a single, smooth coat of +seche vite clear base. Even though it's clear, you still want to keep it off the skin the same as you would with color and your top coat. The logic holds true that, not only does it get dry, white and crispy when it's left on the skin but it prevents a good seal between your nail, base, color and top coat. This is where the orange wood cuticle stick comes in handy. Pour a little acetone in the bottle's cap, dip the stick in and just wipe away any polish from the skin. It works like a wick to give you a clean application. Once you've base coated all 10 nails (9 in my case), apply your color in a smooth, fairly thin coat. Here's a trick: don't dip your brush wand back into the bottle all the way. You want a ball of polish on the end. The idea is to get a smooth finish while getting complete nail coverage. Your first coat should achieve this. You can wiggle the brush up to the cuticle nice and close, don't forget those corners (if you have them). Don't fret over the first coat much, that's what the second one is for. Start applying your second coat on the first nail you polished without waiting in between for setting up. You want this coat to be thicker and you want enough polish on the brush so that the brush doesn't come in contact with the previous coat. That's what causes brush marks, pulls and uneven finishes. Go straight to your top coat and apply a thick coat on each nail. You don't want it flooding the cuticle but you do want it close enough to seal the color in. Run the top coat across the free edge of the nail first, then place a healthy dab in the center of the nail, gliding it toward the edge. With your big toe, one dip isn't going to do it so place the center line, redip for each side working quickly before it sets up. After the last nail is top coated, spritz with speed dry and relax. This is your excuse to do nothing for an hour. Well, not nothing. There's always Pinterest and Facebook to catch up on. Your polish will last until you are ready for a new color. Not cracks, chips or wear.