Nail Salon Horror Story: Nail Fungus...and How to Get Rid of It

So a few months ago, I visited Europe. Before embarking on my exciting vacation, I got my nails done at a salon for two reasons: 1) I wanted to do something different with my nails 2) I wanted them to look nice and be hassle free while I was on vacation.  I rarely go to the salon since I am a nail art afficionado and rarely pay for things I can do myself. I picked out what I thought would be a nice, CLEAN nail salon to get my nails done for the trip. My girlfriends and I even ohhhed and ahhhed over how clean and beautiful the salon was. The manicure was fabulous. It lasted the entire time I was abroad and I was in heaven. Finally I had found a salon I liked. I even went back to the salon a second time. Then a few weeks later while cleaning off my polish, I discovered I had nail fungus!

This was the first time I had ever gotten nail fungus. I had to google what the white spots on my nail were and get a doctor to confirm my discovery before I believed that I had nail fungus. The salon had been so clean! Surely they could not have given me the fungus! When I finally accepted that the salon was dirtier than meets the eye, I vowed never to return there and focused my efforts on trying to get rid of my fungus. My doctor recommended an over-the-counter nail solution. However, after being unsatisfied with how long it would take to get rid of the fungus using the solution (FOUR weeks!) , I turned to my home remedy: distilled white vinegar.

It took one week to get rid of my nail fungus with my cheap home remedy. It was a lifesaver for me since I did not want to walk around with ugly nails. Here is how I did it, in case you fall victim to this unsightly disease:

1. First,  file the areas on the nail that have fungus on them so they are as thin as your normal nails. When you have a fungus, the nail grows thicker than normal so that the fungus is shielded from light enabling it to grow better.
2. Throw out all nail files used for the past two weeks before the discovery of the fungus. If you use these products again, you will definitely contaminate your nails once more and the treatment will be ineffective. Nile files are cheap--it is definitely worth the $1-$5 to get a new file.
3. Clip your nails as short as possible. I cut mine so short, it was almost painful to clip the nail further. This helps light to reach the fungus and prevents it from being able to hide itself under your nail.  Immediately use a hand sanitizer to clean your hands. Also I held my nail clippers over a candle flame so that the fungus would not contaminate my nail clippers. You can either do this or throw your clippers away.  After sanitizing the clippers, I again sanitized my hands using hand sanitizer.
4. Dip your hands in a bowl of distilled white vinegar for 20 minutes. The bowl does not need to be super full; you just need to insure that every nail is immersed in the vinegar.
5. Repeat steps 1-4 until the fungus is gone. Mine took about a week for this to happen.

Good luck and here's to enjoying healthy fungus free nails! Also check out my Beauty Giveaway!

Haylee :)