Blowing on your freshly applied nail polish is useless. Here’s why.

By Aisling Keenan
28th Oct 2020

Blowing on your freshly applied nail polish is useless. Here’s why.

Blowing on your nails is the natural inclination when your polish is still wet, right? I did it recently in front of Ireland’s top nail expert and she told me exactly why it’s a pointless exercise…

It’s literally the first thing I do after I paint my nails. Surely blowing air in the direction of the wet polish will help things speed up, in the absence of cuticle oil or a quick drying spray?

Alas, no. Pamela Laird (beauty entrepreneur, nail tech to the stars and soon-to-be UK Apprentice candidate) says that, technically, nail polish doesn’t dry, it cures.

Blowing is useless

“Blowing on them does nothing to speed up the process. The only thing that’ll speed it up is a cuticle oil or a drying spray. These contain volatile silicones that will speed up drying, the oil traps oxygen in at the nail to make it dry faster.”

Also, Pamela says, cuticle oil helps keep the nail polish from smudging.

Here are three quick dry products worth having to hand (excuse the pun) next time you get a manicure.