Pin Testing - How to Get Whiter Nails

If you're like me and need a daily dose of eye candy, there is no better place than good old Pinterest to get your fix.  Along the way, you'll come across approximately 47 million pins that promise that it's super easy to build an entire ottoman out of matchsticks and some gum wrappers from the bottom of your purse and clean up every stain ever made with vinegar and baking soda.  Since I generally like doing things the easy way, I'm frequently drawn in to the promise of awesome results (it's right there in the picture!) with little effort.

Today's pin-speriment comes from my Helpful Hints board and promises to remedy yellow discolored fingernails that you get from wearing nail polish for too long.

How to Get Whiter Nails

Source: shape.com via Lindsey on Pinterest

This is a problem I know all too well, as my fingernails are painted 95% of the time and my toenails are painted 100% of the time.  Since I'm not planning to get a pedicure until this weekend and absolutely cannot leave the house with naked toes, I tested out said pin on my fingernails only.

In my 'before' picture below, the yellowing on my fingernails is kind of hard to see.  I took about 872 pictures  and couldn't capture it properly with my iPhone or my Canon Power Shot.  If you look closely, you can see where white healthy nail has started to grow in at the top of each nail bed.

The 'Before' Nails

The caption of the pin had the following directions:  How to get white nails -- make a paste using 1 tbsp peroxide and 2 1/4 tbsp baking soda. Let this paste sit on your nails for 5 minutes and voila! White nails! REMEMBER THIS AFTER USING BRIGHT NAIL POLISH!

When you mix the paste of baking soda and peroxide together, it looks like this (Pay special attention to the awesome 70s style spoon that may parents got as part of their wedding flatware in 1973.  The marriage = dead since 1981.  The spoon = still kicking it almost 40 years later)

I mixed the baking soda and peroxide glop together and piled it on my nails using a small paint brush since the directions didn't really specify HOW to apply said glop.  You're dying to know what that looks like, right?

I have no idea if that's what the pinner had in mind for this but there it is.  I let this sit for the five minutes as directed before rinsing off.  Here is the 'before' picture (again) on the top and the 'after' picture on the bottom (I would put them side by side but uploading photos in Blogger sucks and I can't figure out how to do that):

'Before' Nails

'After' Nails - Baking Soda/Peroxide Test

If anything, I think the yellowing is more noticeable in the 'after' picture than it was in the 'before' shot.  Test #1 for 'How to Get Whiter Nails' = FAIL.

After the crash and burn results of the first nail whitening treatment, I decided to actually click through to the link on the pin to see if those directions were any different.  It took me a while to actually find the directions in the Shape magazine article.  It turns out that the actual directions were to scrub your nails with whitening toothpaste and a nail brush with zero mention of either baking soda OR peroxide.   WTF Pinterest?

Anyway, I grabbed some whitening toothpaste from my travel kit and an old toothbrush, because I don't actually own a nail brush.  Well, I did at one time but I have two daughters who like to borrow steal my stuff on a regular basis, so the toothbrush was going to have to do for purposes of the next test.  The directions in the article didn't actually specify how much toothpaste to use or how long to scrub your nails for (I'm learning that some pins aren't very specific, which sucks for people like me who need clear and concise directions). 

The supplies for 'Whiter Nails - Take Two'

I globbed some toothpaste on the brush and got good and scrubby for five minutes, figuring I would use the timeframe from the original test since Shape magazine doesn't like to give clear directions when handing out beauty tips, apparently.

Minty fresh fingers

When I finished scrubbing and rinsed again, I again admired my handiwork.  The 'before' (again) is on the top and the 'after' is on the bottom:

'Before' Nails

'After' Nails - Toothpaste Test

Some observations:

1 - I don't see a noticeable difference in the yellowing after this test, either.
2 - As you can see in the 'after' picture, my nails now have some weird white lines on them like they're all dried out or something.  I'm very excited about that.
3 - If you look close enough at my palm in the 'after' picture, you'll see that the toothpaste left some weird white dots on my skin that won't come off, and I have no idea why.

Test #2 for 'How to Get Whiter Nails' = FAIL.

If anything, my nails are worse off than when I started.  The verdict on 'How to Get Whiter Nails' is:  Sucky Pin. 

Thanks for nothing, Pinterest.

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