I received this set of Cricket 1/4 Inch Cuticle Nippers to review. Until I went to nail school, I hadn’t really used nippers before and it was something I had to practice to get comfortable with. I’ve been asked for recommendations on nippers a few times so I thought it would be nice to try a different professional brand other than the ones I received in my kit. I chose the 1/4 inch nipper since they are designed smaller to get into those hard-to-reach places.
I don’t really have cuticles to cut since I push mine back all the time, but I did test these out on myself first just to get a feel for them. I noticed right away that they are quite sharp and very little effort is needed to nip the excess dead skin. With the other nippers I have, sometimes I feel like I’m tugging a bit on the skin since they don’t cut clean through. The Cricket nippers make a very clean cut with no tugging or pulling of the skin.
I called my friend Christine to see if she would be a hand model for this review. She was happy to help out and get a little pampering in the process. :) Below is a before picture of her nails. You can see that there are some small hangnails and some excess cuticle that could be pushed back and nipped, particularly on the ring finger.
I softened her cuticles with CND Cuticle Away and pushed them back with a metal cuticle pusher. Then I carefully cut away the excess dead skin with the Cricket nippers. At first I did have a bit of a hard time with the nippers because they stayed shut every time I squeezed and I had to manually pry them back open. After applying a little oil to the hinge on the nippers, they opened and closed smoothly with no extra effort needed.
These nippers were really great for getting into the corners and hard-to-reach places, and they left a nice clean line. Cricket also makes a 1/2 inch nipper that’s a little larger for normal use and I think those would be better to use on the larger areas, as it would make the process go a little faster.
The photo below shows how Christine’s nails looked after the manicure. I didn’t want to photograph them just after prepping because I was doing a dry prep for gel polish which makes your hands and nails appear extra dry. She chose a white gel polish with a glitter topper (Gelish Escar-Go to France). After the gel polish application, I applied some cuticle oil and did a hand and arm massage using Aveda Hand Relief cream.
I thought the nippers worked great! They were sharper and easier to use than other brands I’ve tried, and now I want to get my hands on the 1/2 inch nippers as well! The Cricket 1/4 Inch Pro Cuticle Nippers are available for purchase on Amazon.com for $34.94. Visit The Cricket Company website at http://www.cricketco.com/ for more information and to see their other professional beauty product offerings.
