Holiday nails made easy – 12 essential buys

Photo by Biel Morro on Unsplash

Finga Nails Emergency Nail Repair Patches, £6.95 For emergency, on the move situations, these clear plasters in three sizes lock on to fix a broken nail in place. Then just add a layer of top coat to make good the repair. Be sure to apply them only to the nail – attach an edge to skin and they could start to peel. A much easier to carry alternative to keeping glue in your bag for emergency nail fixes.

Nourishing Nail Pen, £7.99 for three A serum that comes in handy 5ml applicator pens – perfect for a cabin bag – this is made with nourishing jojoba and grapeseed oil infused with keratin. Simply brush it on, massage in gently and then leave to dry for a couple of minutes. It promotes nail growth and is especially good for brittle, fragile nails. Your nails should start to improve within 2-3 weeks.

Margaret Dabbs Luxury Manicure & Pedicure Set, £149.99 Margaret Dabbs is the queen of feet – her 11 UK podiatry clinics and brilliant product range have a starry bunch of fans, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Victoria Beckham, Jessica Alba, Prince Harry and a whole roster of models, royals and politicians. This vegan leather case has all you need to keep your digits presentable: nail scissors, toenail clippers, foot file, cuticle pusher, nail file and buffer. A top-drawer tool kit.

Dior Nail Glow, £29 If the summer holidays mean minimal manicure obligations to you, this is the ideal product. Think of it as a French manicure in a bottle – the lightly tinted polish revives nails' natural colour. Just one coat will create radiant, healthy-looking nails. Summer beauty never got easier.

Londontown discovery set, £64 Despite its name, Londontown is a New York based company. Its origin story does involve wartime Hertfordshire though: founder Marina Dimentman's grandmother and her sister concocted homemade botanicals to get round the shortage of beauty products during the Second World War. Their homemade antioxidant-rich flower oil emulsion would become Florium Complex, which sits at the heart of Londontown's products. This discovery set comprises full-size versions of some of their bestsellers (only the lacquer remover would fail the 100ml test, so would need to be decanted or go in the hold): Illuminating Nail Concealer lacquer (a one-step manicure in a bottle); Lacquer in Chai (a taupey colour); Get Stong Nail Hardener, a strengthening treatment that contains Florium; acetone-free Strengthening Lacquer Remover; Nourishing Cuticle Oil, with Florium; Whipped Cloud hand cream, a lightweight, non-sticky formula; and finally, a glass nail file.

Orly Nail Rescue Kit, £20.50 Contains all you need to fix broken nails in minutes: brush the glue onto the split nail; dip your finger into the repair powder; leave to dry and then use the buffer to file it to a smooth finish. Easy peasy.

Nursem Caring Skin Fix, £11.24 Yes, it's expensive, for a 50ml pot, but it works. An intensive hand cream that nails love and which really gets stuck into very dry and sore skin, calming redness, hydrating with hyaluronic acid and helping to restore the barrier function with avocado oil, shea butter and glycerin. It's a full-on option in midsummer (instead coming into its own in autumn and winter) but absolutely what you need if you've got a long-haul flight in the diary.

Tweezerman mini nail rescue kit, £14 If you're travelling light, this bare-minimum kit, with clippers, a dual nail cleaner and cuticle pusher tool and nail file, all in a plastic carry case, is the business.

Elegant Touch nail polish remover pads, £2.30 for 20 Moistened pads don't count as a liquid when flying, plus you don't have to worry about any accidental spills of remover. And these are acetone free. Win, win, win.

Navy cuticle balm mini, £9.95 Navy was set up in 2018 on a farm near Doncaster by a former beauty industry professional who wanted to create a range of locally sourced or made beauty tools and products that had sustainability and a natural approach at their heart. Handmade in Yorkshire, the cuticle balm contains coconut oil, shea butter, aloe vera gel and hempseed, rosehip and sunflower seed oils, to strengthen nails and nourish dry cuticles. This is the 15ml size, but you could equally travel with the 30ml tin, £14.95.

Gentlemen's Hardware Cut Above The Rest manicure kit, £20 If the man in your life needs to up his nailcare game, this is the perfect kit to slip into his luggage, with scissors, nail clippers, tweezers and nail file housed in a grey fabric pouch. Not so much hang nail as hang tough.

Erbe Solingen Houston manicure set, £105 The luxe option. German precision engineering makes this a kit you'll be travelling with for years. The nickel-plated steel tools comprise nail scissors, cuticle scissors, cuticle trimmers, tweezers, two nail cleaning tools and a file, all in a handmade leather case. Highly covetable.

When it comes to a travel nailcare kit, the best advice is to keep it simple: a nail file, cuticle oil, a good moisturising balm and a neutral/clear polish for quick touch-ups along the way. But sometimes nail disasters strike, and no one wants to spend their holiday looking at or nursing a broken nail, so there are some repair options here too. If you are travelling hand baggage only, the good news is that scissors are allowed in carry-on if the blades are under 4 inches from the pivot point, so most nail and cuticle scissors are fine. Tweezers and nail clippers are also allowed in carry-ons. All these choices are cabin-bag suitable (the one exception being Londontown's nail polish remover).

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