' 'Blowing on your nails doesn't speed up drying time. As you breathe on them, the humidity of your breath will prevent the polish drying any faster. Polish dries faster when it's cooler.
Blowing cool air from your blow dryer for 2 to 3 minutes will help speed up drying time. Just make sure to hold the blow dryer a good 12 inches away from your nails to avoid damaging your nail polish!
Generally, it takes 1-2 hours before nail polish is completely dry on its own, especially if you've used a base coat, two coats of nail polish and a topcoat. Formaldehyde-free polishes take more time to dry.
Continue blowing hot air on the paint until it's dry.
If you don't have the time or energy to fully dry the surface you're working on, using a heat gun can still be an effective way to speed up your paint's drying time.
Many say blasting your nails with a blow-dryer on the cool setting can dry your manicure faster. However, this can reduce shine and even move the polish, leaving it uneven, says Boyce. She recommends a fan to help polish firm up and dry faster.
Most nail polish applications should fully dry in under an hour; in fact, nail polish can take as little as 15 minutes to dry, Lim says. Many salons have fan dryers with UV lights, which can help accelerate the drying time.
If your nail polish is not drying quickly, you've likely just painted on too thick of a layer. You should only be applying thin layers at a time and let each one dry before applying another. Thanks!
Case-in-point: dipping your nails in a cold water bath. While it's a popular belief that this helps dry nail polish, Draper says it doesn't work. “Nail polish is a polymer, formed by a chemical reaction,” she explains.
Using hairspray to dry your nail polish is a great life hack if you've run out of nail hardening spray. Performing in the same way, it sets the top layer of the polish easily, so you can go about your day without worrying about smudges.
There could be a number of reasons why your nail polish is drying slower than expected. It could be a result of neglecting to apply a base coat. This step is essential to get the nail polish to adhere to your nails. Another cause of slow-drying could be the way you're applying the polish itself.
You need cold air to harden the polish. If you are in a hurry and have somewhere to go, putting your nails in the freezer is the way to go. Just stick your hands in the freezer and make sure that they are in the back since it's coldest there.
"I wouldn't go over three coats because you run the risk of over polishing, which looks really heavy and juvenile," Washick says. "You also run a better chance of streaking as you paint and smudging as you dry."
To prevent smudging, it is best to wait one to two hours before hopping in the tub or shower. To help speed drying time, use a fast-drying topcoat or a nail polish dryer.
Remove polish every two weeks and give your nails a breather for a day or so. Or switch to light polish, which doesn't need to be changed as often since there's a lower risk of it staining your nails.
Avoid doing your nails 2-3 hours before bed to ensure a perfect, smooth finish.
Luckily, analysts at Glamour.com recently revealed a great way to check if your nail polish is dry. “When you think they're about done, very gently touch your pinky nails together,” the news source reports. “If you can feel the polish “grab” slightly, it's not quite dry yet and you need to give it a few more minutes.”
If you're painting your own nails, Mimi says her top piece of advice is to wait two minutes between each coat of polish and paint your nails while you're doing something enjoyable, like watching your favorite TV show, as this will help pass the time.
Nails don't need surface access to air because they get oxygen and nutrients from your blood. Keeping nails hydrated is important if yours are prone to breakage, and a pause in polishing to moisturize would help.
It is crucial not to file nails while wet; Lin explains, “When we file wet nails, the nail absorbs a lot of water and becomes softer, [meaning] it can become quite easy to break the nail or over-file, especially if the client has longer nails.”
Some brands of gel polish may leave a sticky residue if they were not properly cured. The inhibition layer appears because oxygen in the air prevents the gel polish on your manicure from curing completely, leaving a tacky or sticky residue.
Most polish takes about 24 hours to dry, but if you use fast-drying top coats and drying drops, you can speed up the process. Even with these tips, it's best to wait about 10 minutes before you move your hands about. Keep your nails still to avoid dings and dents as you do your nightly routine.