My Story part 2 - The Growing Process (+ photos)

August 2013 is when I successfully stopped biting my nails for the first time.

Whilst starting this process I was very sceptical. I knew my nails would be thin and weak and would probably rip and break right away. I knew that the free edge (white bit) of my nail would be really far down the nail plate because I bit them down so far. I have naturally short nail beds too which didn't help.
I thought that if I did ever manage to grow them they would just look ridiculous and out of proportion.
However, I knew that I was going to try my best to see this through. They may break, I may never be destined have nails of my own, but I was going to try hard nevertheless.

My first step was to invest in something that I am sure I would have never managed to grow my nails without. After seeing amazing reviews, I purchased a bottle of OPI Nail Envy. I am convinced that this was my secret weapon. I followed the instructions to the letter - apply two coats to clean nails then one coat every day after that. You can also wear Nail Envy underneath polish so when my nails had grown a tiny bit I started to paint them.

Note: it's worth mentioning that I had an extremely small collection of nail polishes at this point, as I very rarely wore false nails. Oh how that was about to change!

I found that wearing a few layers of polish helped to protect my very thin nails, so I kept them painted as much as I could. Slowly but surely they grew and grew. I took lots of pictures along the way to document their journey.

This is the first photo I have of my nails right after I started to grow them. This photo was taken around mid-August. It took about 3 weeks to get to this stage, so you can imagine how short my nails really were before.

This photo was taken two weeks later, at the end of August: 

These photos were taken another two weeks later, mid September:

 

Four weeks later, mid-October:

This polish was a bit lumpy!

My nails eventually started to get thicker, and grew to an incredible length. People didn't believe they were real nails - especially the people that had seen what my nails were like before. The transformation was incredible.

Mid-November:

 Here are my nails when they were at their longest (start of January 2014):

Ignore the plaster :)
My index finger nail started to tear at the side so I filed it down to stop it from getting worse, hence the wonkiness! 

I managed to keep them at this length for a few weeks. Then I started to have accidents with them (mostly at work!) and when one broke really far down it just looked silly. So I made the difficult decision to cut them short for the first time since growing them. This made me very sad :( I hope they grow fast!

I will be posting lots of NOTD's so you will always be able to see what my nails are currently looking like.

Another product that I think may have helped with growing my nails, as well as softening my cuticles, is the Sally Hansen Maximum Growth Cuticle Pen. I massaged this into my nails and cuticles every few days, and pushed my cuticles back too whilst they were softer. I have managed to lengthen my nail beds a little by doing this. It smells divine - to me it smells like battenberg cake!

My current nails (mid January 2014):

Let the growing begin!

I hope you enjoyed reading my story :)

My next posts will probably be photos of my nail polish collection (woohoo!).

Please feel free to ask any questions in the comments section, I will always help where I can!

Love, Sarah NailsfromNothing xx