Curious About At-Home Gel Manis? Here's The Kit I Swear By
I love having my nails done. It makes me feel put together and it's fun to match my outfit or the season to my nail color. I am also really hard on my hands. I sometimes wash dishes without wearing gloves, I use really harsh reagents in the lab that can strip nail polish right off, and I am constantly gardening and using my hands in the earth. Because of this, I like gel manicures. They are cured with LED or UV light so the polish literally binds to your nails and doesn't chip off like normal nail polish does.
At home gel manicures have been a thing for years now, but I was hesitant to do it myself. I was worried it would take too long, that it would be too difficult, or that the UV light would be bad for me in the long term. Last year I invested in a cheap gel manicure set that uses a LED light to cure the polish and it has been life changing in the best way possible. The gel manicure set that I use is the MEFA one from Amazon. The starter kit comes with 12 colors, a base coat, a top coat, a file, and the lamp.
When I do a manicure I first push back my cuticles and use the included file to rough up the nail surface so the base coat has something to adhere to. Then I do a swipe of acetone to remove any natural oils. I then do a really thin base coat, cure it for a minute (two cycles of light), and then 2-3 cycles of color followed by a minute of curing. Lastly, I apply a thin layer of top coat. The top coat provides sheen and protection and it is much thicker than the other polishes. While it is easy to build it up really thick, I found that it works much better to apply a thin layer of top coat and then go back in a couple days if needed and add another layer on top of that.
My manicure lasts around two weeks, but I've done a gel pedicure that still looked great at around the three week mark. To remove, you rough up the top coat with a file and soak off the polish with cotton balls soaked in acetone.
Let me know in the comments what your favorite gel manicure kit is. I've seen a lot of ads for the mini macaron, but I feel like it would be so time consuming to go finger by finger. Also let me know what color your nails are right now! I have a nude base with light gold shimmer that looks almost champagne colored.
P.S. Have you checked these posts out?
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