Nail Care: for Jams and Everyday!

Hello friends!

As I mentioned, fingernail care is SO important to me. Seems that the older I get, the more I realize that taking care of yourself really needs to be a priority. And for me, "wellness" includes a variety of factors such as proper nutrition, exercise, natural solutions to healthcare (is, essential oils!) and getting enough quality sleep. One other item for me, is nail care. Your hands make a statement...they can show you've been working in the garden or in a factory, they can show you've been under stress, and they can show that you care about yourself when you take time to care for your nails. 

Truth be told, I'm not a nail care professional. I'm not licensed as an nail tech or anything like that. I've never been to beauty school or taken any classes to that effect. I just have an new-found appreciation for nail care - so I'm sharing my research here. 

Healthy Nails:

A fingernail is produced by living skin cells in the finger. A fingernail consists of several parts including the nail plate (the visible part of the nail), the nail bed (the skin beneath the nail plate), the cuticle (the tissue that overlaps the plate and rims the base of the nail), the nail folds (the skin folds that frame and support the nail on three sides), the lunula (the whitish half-moon at the base of the nail) and the matrix (the hidden part of the nail unit under the cuticle).

Healthy fingernails are smooth, without pits or grooves. They are uniform in color and consistency and are free of spots or discoloration. Sometimes fingernails develop harmless vertical ridges that run from the cuticle to the tip of the nail. Vertical ridges tend to become more prominent with age. Fingernails can also develop white lines or spots due to injury, but these eventually grow out with the nail. Buffing regularly helps with blood circulation and often minimizes this problem.

To keep your fingernails looking their best, follow these simple guidelines.

Please, don't use your nails as tools. Seriously. 

Keep your fingernails dry and clean. Wear cotton-lined rubber gloves when washing dishes, cleaning or using harsh chemicals, and avoid long soaks in the tub. (Before applying nail wraps wraps, make sure your nails are healthy and you follow the application method provided by Jamberry on the back of each package.)

Trim and file your fingernails regularly. Use a sharp manicure scissors or clippers. Trim your nails straight across, then round the tips in a gentle curve. 

Moisturize your hands in the morning and before sleeping.  Keep a non-greasy hand lotion by your bed, your desk and your sink. When you use hand lotion, rub the lotion into your fingernails and cuticles, too. Don’t bother with petroleum-based products. Petroleum products do NOT work with human chemistry so they don't absorb into our pores. We recommend you use all the Jamberry hand care products because our products are free of petroleum. If you don't already have cuticle oil you should absolutely get some Jamberry cuticle oil or good quality cuticle oil.

Dermatologists recommend that you always take care to moisturize the nail bed and the cuticle. While there is little in the way of medical data showing that moisturizing the nail bed will help nails grow, it will make cuticles softer, look better and help protect nails from breaking due to a lack of moisture. 

Protecting your nails with Jamberry wraps:

It is important to remember that everyone is different. While the majority of customers can wear nails wraps with no issues, there will be some people that are not able to wear the wraps due to their body chemistry – just as there are some individuals who cannot wear gel nails or polish. However, most of those who experience nail damage after wearing and removing our wraps can prevent this  damage by simply following the removal method provided by Jamberry on each package of wraps and/or  by keeping hydrated (both inside and out).

Utilizing the appropriate removal processes – especially the gentle process using warm oil and NEVER simply peeling off nail wraps - is super important. The wraps have been applied using hot glue and have a very strong bond with the nail plate. If you have not used a strengthening or smoothing base coat before application, this is especially important.

www.claudine.jamberrynail.com

Best. Jam. Ever.

I love making jam. I do not love eating jam. Frankly, I just don't really like fruit so jam never really hits the spot for me. But several years before my Dad died, he taught me how to make and can homemade jam. I have fond memories of he and his girlfriend making jam during the summer and early fall at my grandmother's house in Michigan. The smell of hot fruited sugar can't be beat. And now that my Dad is gone, I cherish those memories more than ever...and continuing the tradition of making jam helps me keep him close.

So yesterday I realized I had a 2.5 lb bag of pie cherries in the outside freezer that I intended to use for jam this winter. Oops. I ended up making a quick batch while my daughter was at a playdate. It only took me 45 minutes to make a batch of the best cherry jam ever. Typically, I'm a certo girl. Certo, for those new to the process, is pectin (which makes the fruit set up into jam, rather than sauce). Certo is a liquid which comes in a pouch, and it's the only thing my Dad would use. But I wanted to make sugar-free jam, and certo requires sugar, lots of sugar. Instead, I deviated from the norm and went with Ball Natural Gel No Sugar Needed Fruit Pectin, in a box...cause it's a powder.

Making jam is really very simple and I'll outline it for you here, in case you want to give it a try. The first time you make jam, you'll be hooked. Trust me.

What you need:
canning jars
lids & rings (must be new)
stock pot
fruit
pectin
sugar or splenda
lid magnet (a stick with a magnet on it, I'll explain this later)
funnel
damp towel

What you do:

PREPARE: Put your jars into the dishwasher and run it with the heated dry cycle. You need to sterilize the jars and keep them hot. Put the lids and rings into a saucepan filled with water and boil them, keeping them on the heat until you're ready to can.

COOK: Next, follow the instructions on your pectin package. They are pretty much all the same, and it involved cooking the prepared fruit (*prepared meaning chopped or crushed, sometimes adding lemon juice) over high heat with sugar, stirring constantly. When the fruit and sugar reaches a rolling boil, add the pectin and cook for 5 minutes or so, depending on the pectin package. A rolling boil is one that you can't stir down.

JAR: Once the timer rings, you'll ladel the hot jam into the hot jars. Take only 2-3 jars out of the dishwasher at a time, fill those, then grab a few more until all the jam is in jars. Wipe off all the edges of the jars with a damp towel so they are clean. Then, take the stick with a magnet on it and grab the lids from the saucepan, place them on top of the jars. Do the same with the rings. Screw the rings on, only as tight as you can using your fingertips...ie, not too tight.

SEAL: Here's where things get a little controversial....I pretty much only use what is called the Inversion Method. That's what Dad used, so that's what I use. After the jars have lids and rings, flip them upside down onto a clean towel on the counter. Time it for exactly 5 minutes. No more, no less. FIVE minutes. After 5 minutes is up, flip them right side up. Then, you wait. You'll hopefully hear the "pop" of each lid sealing. Don't touch them or test them out for several hours or you risk accidentally creating a false seal by pressing on the top of the lid. (My husband did this once, he knows better now.)

Now if the jars don't seal, that's when I might do a water-bath. I don't even want to get into the details of a water-bath, it's just a PITA really. It's not hard, but I rarely use it. Some people will tell you that it's not safe to invert for canning. But for over 25 years of eating my Dad's jam and almost 10 years of canning myself, I'm perfectly content with inversion and feel confident that it's safe. And since I never enter contests with my jam, I think I'm fine. (contests usually specifically state you can't use inversion)

So there you have it.
Jam Making & Canning 101.

Hmmm, maybe that should have been the title for this post.....