How to Dry Your Nails - PAM or Ice Water?

Have you ever stood in line at the grocery store and perused the gossip magazines?  

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I usually laugh and walk away but a friend tipped me off to Real Simple Magazine which had a couple of tips on how to dry your nails quickly, so I decided to put them to the test to see if they really work.

                        PAM vs. ice water - which will be the ultimate nail drying technique??

Magazine Tip #1 - If you spray PAM on your nails while they're wet and wipe them off, they'll be completely dry.

I got to work. To be as scientific as possible, I gave this four tries. I figured that was enough, right?

Take 1 - I applied a medium layer of nail polish

I immediately sprayed on the PAM...

I wiped off the residue with a tissue aaaaaand... not bad, but not great. I did mange to wipe away some of the nail polish.

Take 2 - I applied a thin layer of nail polish, sprayed, wiped, and it ended up looking worse.

Take 3 - I applied a thick, gloppy layer of nail polish - there was hardly any polish left on the nails after I wiped off the PAM!

Take 4 - I applied a medium layer, waited 1 minute to let them dry, and then sprayed with PAM. The result? Not bad, only 2 out of the 5 nails were affected, the rest looked great.

In the end, I wouldn't recommend this technique. Your hands, your table, your doorknobs - everything will be covered in PAM. Not only that, but it doesn't work 100% of the time. So, what about tip #2?

My greasy digits

Magazine Tip #2 - "Allow nails to air-dry for two minutes, then submerge in ice-cold water for three minutes, which is enough time for the polish to harden completely."

Seemed easy enough! After waiting exactly two minutes, I put my fingers in the bowl of ice water.

Note: after two minutes, the polish is practically dry anyway.

Ok, three minutes in ice water... three... whole... gosh this hurts... minutes... ok, there is NO way you can comfortably let your fingertips rest in ice water for over one minute, let alone three!

So while this technically works, don't hurt yourself in the process. And honestly, if you're lazy like me, you're better of just letting your nails air dry instead of pouring water in a bowl, getting some ice out, putting some ice cubes in the bowl, blah blah blah. Just let your nails air dry, screw the magazines!

TOTAL COSTS: $3.49 for PAM

TOTAL AMOUNT OF TIME: Less than 5 minutes

EASY-PEASY SCALE (1 super easy - 5 very difficult): 1 out of 5
Neither one of these "tips" are difficult, however they are messy, painful, greasy, slimy... a lot of adjectives you don't want when it comes to painting and drying your nails!