I am the Queen of the short-lived home manicure.

Whenever I paint my nails at home, they always end up chipping as early as 12 hours later, no matter how hard I try to preserve them (which can be difficult when you spend most of your working week typing).

This annoys the hell out of me and also prevents me from wearing dark colours on my nails too often, seeing as I’d have to be painting them every second day, which frankly I don’t have time for (especially during the TV ratings season).

A friend of mine recommended OPI Ridge Filler, a surface smoother that contains natural silk to even out nails. Of course, OPI makes the best moderately-priced nail colours going around, and I don’t mind paying the standard $20 for my OPI top coat colours. However if you’re on a budget, $20 can be a bit pricey for ridge filler, which is essentially an undercoat.

I was browsing around in Priceline the other day and came across a product called Cutex Smooth & Strong, which is also a ridge filler-cum-nail treatment. With an RRP of $6.95, it’s far more affordable, too.

I applied the Smooth & Strong as a base coat on Sunday afternoon, and nearly two days later I have no chips and the finish feels much smoother than usual. I used it with a single coat of OPI Malaysian Mist on top.

By Caroline Warnes