Ladies treat their nails like their hair: They can’t go out of the house with them in shambles.  Nails and fingers can make or break a lady’s  hand—literally and figuratively. To fashionistas around the world, the slightest lump on their nail gets them upset–like  a bubbly nail polish.

Reasons why nail polish bubbles

The reasons are pretty few and obvious, but how to get nail polishing right is debate fodder for all fashion gurus.

1. Shaking the container before polishing your nails. Most nail stylists shake the nail polish container before applying your nail polish. You can well imagine what happens next: Air bubbles start to get inside the container. Once it’s opened, more seep in. Instead, they should turn the bottle upside down and roll it over on a flat surface, or on their palm several times.

2. Doing a very thick application. If you spread your nail polish too thick, it picks up air bubbles really quick: You end up scooping up air particles with every thick spread.

3. Nail polishing inside a hot room. If the temperature is high, air particles spread out far and wide and your nail polish naturally absorbs them.  The heat expands the nail polish’s molecules and opens them to air.

4. Coating before drying. Let the first coating dry up first, before applying another. It’s not like your making a peanut butter sandwich. Allowing the top coating to dry first  leaves no space for air.

How to apply nail polish without air bubbles

Instead of going to your nail stylist (which doesn’t come cheap), you can apply your nail polish without a glitch by doing these:

1. Roll the nail polish container back and forth for a while (but leave the cap on)
2. Put a thin undercoat (this makes your varnish stick stronger)
3. Add a top coat when the undercoat has completely dried up
4. Your brush’s load should be thin enough to make it easy to stroke back and forth
5. Don’t blow your last coating—let it dry at room temperature
6. Don’t use your nail in opening plastic containers, so your nail polish doesn’t come off

Most women change their nail color every ten days, depending on their mood.  If you have to, see to it that you completely remove varnish from your nails before you apply a new layer.

Keep the coats as thin as possible; three thin coats is better then two thick coats. Make sure you’re not sitting in a draft when you apply your polish. Don’t “work” the polish too much; the fewer brush strokes the better. This might mean getting polish on your cuticles but you can clean that up after with NP remover and a cuticle stick wrapped in cotton but there’s nothing you can do about bubbles. If you’re only using OPI, try a different brand. The older Revlons bubble on me but the newer ones (the big three free ones) don’t. You may have better luck with a different brand. I think that the reformulated OPIs are hit or miss. You might also try a different base coat.

Further Readings:

• Why Does My Nail Polish Bubble?
• How to Remove Nail Polish from your Fingers