THE MANICURE BIBLE: Pro Tips From Tom Bachik!

Tom Bachik knows nails. He designs looks for Jennifer Lopez and Victoria Beckham, he is L'Oreal Paris's brand ambassador, and he has over 54,000 Instagram followers. People look to him as a manicure mensa.

Working with Tom over the years, I've gotten to know his fun personality and learned so many great tricks that I figured, "why not share the wealth?" We sat down after a nail art shoot to discuss the dos and don'ts of at-home manicures, and thus The Manicure Bible was born.

So does buffing your nails matter? What's the deal with file grit? And how can you ensure streak-free polish application? Tom shares the tricks he uses on Zooey Deschanel and Heidi Klum, all in the name of the perfect set of nails.


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Closed Caption:

here when it was on the table actually
yeah i mean i was like i said hit sing
for you
hey guys it's for me i am back with Tom
paycheck
how you doing buddy doing good that's
what happened no problem well okay if
you don't know what Thomas let me just
break it down for ya jennifer lopez
jessica simpson zooey deschanel now the
list goes on and on and on and cute
you're very lucky man I am so blessed so
blessed with a beautiful lady
all right tom so we're going to play a
little lightning round of sort of a game
yes so I'm gonna ask you a question
first thing that you can think of a tip
or trick
just let us know ok ok all right so tell
me about a dry manicure because i feel
like this might be a good trick
absolutely I prefer to do a waterless
manicure ok
and the reason for that is because even
though the water and the soaking and and
that is all very pampering it can
actually affect how well the Polish
state your natural nail is very porous
and you can actually absorb water is so
much so that it could actually cause the
nail to change shape
I had no idea about that Tom so you're
blowing my mind
and they consider me the beauty expert
here at popsugar so here we go
what is the best cuticle tip that you
have and maybe a mistake that people
make
i recommend pushing back the cuticles if
you do this routinely then you're not
going to have to worry about going in
and cutting it now if you do have a
hangnail like a piece of skin that
spilled back already
or excessive cuticle you can cut that
what you have to be careful for is
cutting too much because your body your
cuticles actually Guardian that protects
the matrix area where your nail cells
grow
yeah and if you take too much of it off
your body senses it as trauma and groove
back even thicker
got it okay that makes a lot of sense so
it's it's important to keep the cuticles
pushed back you can do this very easily
and gently when your hands are soaked in
like after the dishes are in the shower
and the tub use a you can use a
washcloth a little bit of hair
conditioner and just softly massaging
dance
push back the cuticle and if you do that
you should have nothing to worry about
that when it comes to filing
yes i know that all files are created
equal
can you bring on the filing trick
because there are some different grips
to look for and stuff like that right
definitely different files have
different grits which means how course
the file is it very rough or is it very
smooth
do you want rapper smooth great question
you want smooth
ok because you're now is actually made
up of layers and so if you get down to
like the the microscopic level if you're
using a very rough for course file on
that yeah you take down your length very
quickly but when you get down in there
and you're looking really small that
rough grit is actually separating those
layers at the end and can cause
splitting and pilling i should say how
do we know if the file is smooth
the higher the number the smoother the
file if you get down into the lower
numbers like a 120 180 grit
those are very rough and usually those
are used for male enhancements
ok i was going to have that I'm like why
would you even want one of those but
makes that sound
one thing I think people always skip is
the buffing portion of the manicure
sometimes they do it at the salon and I
feel like that's very luxurious but is
there a benefit to doing at home after
we've pushed back the cuticle taking a
buffer and focusing mainly around the
cuticle area actually smooths out and
tighten the cuticle down to the nail
place you have super clean smooth
cuticles going on the base coat there a
trick to applying the base coat
can we skip base coat what is the I mean
I know it's an anchor right for your
nail polish base coat works a lot like a
double-sided tape so it adheres to the
natural nail better than what nail
polish it hears and then it adheres to
the nail polish
so you can if in a hurry you can skip a
base coat but you're not going to get
the best where the best way is going to
be using a separate base coat and a
separate top coat
so we're painting our nails
I've heard so many different processes
with this like you can go downwards and
go upward you can divide the nail in
half
what is your technique what I do is I
start with my brush
about two-thirds of the way back on the
nail ok and i applied the brush and I
put a little bit of pressure so the
brush kind of fans out and when doing so
it makes a rounded tip then i can push
that back towards the cuticle and I come
straight out off of the edge of the nail
yeah then I go back and I come down one
side and then back to the center and
down on the other side ok so then you
have your paint on everything's great
top coat is absolutely necessary to keep
your pain plays yes and I've heard that
you always want to go around the edge of
your nail it walk it in
it does it helps too once you've done
the top coat over the top
that's going to seal and protect your
your color or your design but then also
just a cap off the edge of you the free
edge of your natural nail is going to
help kind of seal that color off all the
way around the edge of the nail and it
gives you a little bit longer we're okay
and by the way this turned in to not a
lightning round
just turn into an interview but hey I
like it what a great information
how long should you wait for your nails
to dry
great question there's actually a trick
to this as well
the key is to actually let each coat of
polish dry for about a minute between
coats
this is all making sense like magical
isn't it
wait is this a trick question
life is good