A good home manicure can greatly improve the appearance of your hands between trips to the salon. With practice, your at-home results can be nearly indistinguishable from a professional job. But first you’ve got to make sure you’re practicing the right techniques. Contrary to what you might think, the problem isn’t always sloppy painting. Most mistakes with do-it-yourself manicures happen while preparing the nails—well before the nail polish bottle is opened. Here are eight common mistakes at-home manicurists make, and tips for improving your skills.

1. Filing nails back and forth
We’ve mentioned it in some of our other articles, but so many people saw at their nails (and, as a result, shred them), that we’ve got to say it again: when you’re shaping your nails, only push the emery board from the edge to the center. Going at your nails hard in both directions will tear the edge of the nails, leading to breakage, snags, and peeling.

2. Buffing nails too hard for too long
Buffing your nails won’t thin them… if you do it correctly. As with filing your nails, you should only drag the coarse sides of the buffer in one direction over the surface of your nails. Don’t go at it like you’re sanding a table, either: a light touch is all that’s needed. You shouldn’t feel heat developing when you buff. If you do, you’re grinding way too hard and might be thinning the plate. Thin nail plates break more easily when they grow out, and don’t grow as quickly.

3. Forgetting to moisturize cuticles
If you want the skin around your nails to look neat, you need to moisturize at least once every 24 hours. Repeated washing of hands over the course of a day (um, you do wash your hands, right?) can dry out the skin, leading to flaky cuticles and hangnails. Use Cuticle Cuer from Nail-Aid, which is specially formulated for your cuticle treatment.

4. Cutting cuticles
Your hands visit a lot of unsavory places during the day. As a result, cutting your cuticles back can lead to infections and red, inflamed skin, which is never a good look. Instead of cutting or trimming your cuticles, push them back with an orange stick or cuticle pusher after your shower (or after soaking your fingertips in warm water). Only hangnails should be nipped with cuticle trimmers. For insurance, apply an antibacterial ointment immediately afterwards.

5. Using nail polish remover with acetone
It’s good to get the old polish off your nails, but you don’t have to strip away natural oils and enamel while you do it. Old-fashioned acetone-based nail polish removers damage your natural fingernails by drying them out. Additionally, if you didn’t listen to our tip #4, your cut cuticles could be irritated by the acetone as well. Happily, more and more companies have read the memo about acetone’s harmful side effects, and it’s easier to find removers that are labeled acetone-free. Make sure you make the switch.

6. Failure to apply a base coat
The first sin committed while actually painting your nails is a sin of omission—without a base coat, you’re more likely to stain your nails and also more likely to deplete vital moisture. Take the extra time to apply an excellent moisturizing base coat, like Nail-Aid’s Grow Tougher, and make sure you let it dry completely before turning to the polish.

7. Using old nail polish
Polishes formulated before the end of 2007 should be ditched. Sure, the color’s still in fashion, but the chemicals aren’t: in 2007, most companies were still using toxic ingredients like toluene, any kind of formaldehyde (including formaldehyde resins), and dibutyl phthalate. Unfortunately, some still are. Since these chemicals have been linked to nerve damage (toluene), breast cancer (formaldehyde), and birth defects (dibutyl phthalate), you don’t want them on your fingers. Do some research into non-toxic nail polish: there are plenty of gorgeous ones out there, and more are released every season.

8. Leaving polish on for too long
Even with a good base coat applied, letting your nail polish crack, peel, and chip can cause your nails to crack, peel, and chip. Either touch up your polish regularly, or remove the color every ten days or so and re-apply. Make sure you moisturize first, and give your nails a week-long break from polishes every few months to let them breathe naturally.

These tips should give you nails that are not only more beautiful (and inexpensive to maintain, since you’ll rely less on a professional manicurist), but also healthier. Happy manicuring!