Dry your nails fast!

Dry your nails fast!There is nothing more irritating then waiting for perfectly painted nails to dry – only to smudge them when reaching for something in your hand bag. We’ve got some really quick and easy ways to dry your nails fast!

Blow it up

Salons use fans to help speed up drying, but your hair dryer works just as well. The secret is to put it on the ‘cool’ setting. Heat actually keeps polish from firming, so giving your digits a shot of cold air is much more helpful.

Freeze it out

Since cold hardens polish, ice water baths are also a great setting trick. Before you start painting your nails, fill a mixing bowl with ice cubes and run cold water over the top. Then, when you’re finished painting, dip your nails in for about a minute. This is a great way to help protect against divots, since it helps solidify polish all the way through, not just on top. The opposite also holds: if you’re having trouble removing polish, soaking your hands in warm water will make it easier.

Spray it down

You can get nail-drying spray at the pharmacy and it really does help your polish set in a couple of minutes. But cooking-spray (such as Spray and Cook) legendarily does the job as well. Just wait a few minutes after you spray it on and rinse your hands so you don’t smell like canola oil.

Thin it out

Instead of putting on one or two coats of thick polish, apply three extremely thin coats, and let each dry for a couple of minutes before you layer on the next. It might seem like it slows down your manicure, but it actually makes overall drying time much faster.

Top it off

Using a quick-dry topcoat is always smart, because it helps keep everything in place and protects your polish. The only caveat is that the still-liquid polish underneath can move around, resulting in lumps or ripples, so don’t treat it as a cure-all.

So next time you treat yourself to a home manicure or pedicure, experiment with these tips and find out which one(s) work best for you. Or you can just continue waving your hands in the air and not touching anything!

Written by Miriam Lacey, this article originally appeared in Bellasugar.

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17 Responses

  1. I wait up to an hour for my nails to dry – and I still have smudged polish – nearly every time.
    Ice water does not work and is in fact extremely painful. I have tried icing my fingers three times and it has not resulted in a shorter drying time at all. The paint may look solid, but just a gentle touch will result in the entire thing shifting.
    The cool setting on my hairdryer did nothing – I also felt pretty ridiculous blowdrying my fingers.
    Cooking spray results in an oily residue everywhere and nails that only look dry, but are in fact very vulnerable to dents and movement.
    I haven’t tried any quick-dry products. Could anyone recommend any that may actually work?

  2. Very excited about trying the ice. I’m constantly smudging my nails because it takes too long to dry and I’m a little impatient :P

  3. Great tips as always thank you, always get my nails smug when I apply nail polish cause it does not dry out quick enough

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