Gelish and Red Carpet Manicure At-Home Gel Polish

I am stepping into some uncharted territory for myself with this Gelish Gel Nail stuff. I have never had gel polish put on at a nail salon, but when I did the math for the at home set versus getting them done a few times at a salon....this won out. Even if it takes me a few times to master, I will get well over 20 at home gel jobs :)
I went on Amazon.com and started searching, here is what I found:

This is the 6 pc.Gelish Basix Kit that I found for $46.97 (no shipping charge). It says everything is full sized and it looked that way when I received it. There is a 4 oz bottle of Nail Remover and 4 oz bottle of Gel Surface cleanser and .5 oz each of pH Bond, Foundation, Top It Off, and Cuticle Oil.

I did not opt for the Gelish brand light, as that was $70. Instead I found this MS Super Mini LED Light for $46.99 and it has a pair of little nail nippers (they did charge $4.98 for shipping). It has 3 little LEDs underneath and at first I didn't think that was going to be enough....then I plugged it in. WHOA brightness! Those 3 little lights were brighter than the boxes I have seen them use at the salon. I also love how it is black and the on button is a little heart. It is automatically timed for 45 seconds which is exactly what Gelish requires to cure.








This entire system came in for a whopping $98.94. In my area, that is 2 gel polish manicures with a tip. So even if I mess up 2 times trying to master this, I still got my money's worth!

Ok....deep breath....let's try this.

I decided to give this a go on Sunday, left myself plenty of time, set up a little area in my bed with the UV light and a fan plugged in (to help try the regular polish) and all my products.

My first attempt was a disaster, I will save you the "after" pictures. First, I did not know if the Foundation layer was supposed to be sticky so I tried to wipe it off and took the cured product with it. I had to redo that step and since that layer stays tacky it makes using regular polish a little difficult. Then, I guess I did not allow the polish to completely dry before I applied the top coat (even though I sat with my hand in front of the fan until they were numb). Lastly, I do not think I applied the top coat all the way to the edges of the sides of my nails because when I used the gel cleanser, it took the polish off with the tacky layer. But! I did get to experience removing the gel nails and that is what I was really nervous about! It is super easy and using the method of breaking up the cotton ball, soaking the pieces individually before placing them on the nail, and then letting them sit like that for several minutes and then pressing the cotton off the ends, it really makes it simple.

I only did one hand to start with because I had a feeling I would muck it up. I decided to give it another try even though my back was killing me and I was less than motivated.

Here is the first hand I completed. Looks good right? Fooled you! My pinky nail started to get wrinkles in it because it was not dry enough before I did the top coat and I mushed it around until midnight as I contemplated my disappointment
:( My pointer finger chipped a little about 20 minutes after I put my kit away and then my ring finger did the same about an hour later. Fiddlesicks.

Here is the second hand I completed. Don't get too excited thinking I mastered this. The pinky nail again thwarted my plans for a nice manicure and I had to break the ENTIRE KIT OUT AGAIN and redo just that nail because the top coat literally peeled off. My thumb nail had a tiny chip at the tip and the ring finger developed a wrinkle in it around midnight. So much for me sitting with my hands in front of this fan and freezing my digits off to get the polish dry! I see this taking more practice to master and that it is not as easy as the youtube videos make it seem......







The colors I used are butter London's Toff and Sally Hansen Gem Crush in Big Money. I watched this tutorial on youtube and it is very informative. She suggests doing a layer of Top It Off before the polish, but I think for my next try I am going to just wipe the tacky layer off the Foundation base coat and try to paint my nails again.

Frustrated and not even sure how the gel polish works, I headed to Ulta and purchased some Red Carpet Manicure gel polishes. I bought 2 individual colors and a Gems & Jewels Nail Art Kit. This was another $50....so now I am into this at home gel polish thing for $150.

On the left we have Candid Moment which is a creamy nude and on the right is Tres Chic which is a peachy fine shimmer. These are about $10 a piece and come in bottles smaller than a normal nail polish

This is the Gems & Jewels kit. For $30 it comes with 3 polishes (from left to right) I Can't Believe It, Glitterazzi and Tinsel Town. It also comes with 3 pots of loose glitter and a wheel of rhinestones and the rhinestone picker (not shown) as well as 2 orange sticks.

This is the result of my efforts. I started with my pointer finger and did not know how the glitter worked, so this became my accent nail LOL. I applied the glitter with a foundation sponge which worked pretty well. It stuck to the tacky layer which was nice, but glitter still got every where and the top coat (remember you have to do thin layers) ended up dragging glitter pieces all over the place. The rhinestones were easily set and cured into the gel which was great and there was only the 45 second cure time. The whole thing took me about 20 minutes for both hands. I CAN NOT WAIT to play with this more!

Even though this whole ordeal ended up costing me $150, I feel like that is about 3 trips to the nail salon, so it was worth it. I have already done my nails 3 times and I am getting used to doing the thin layers and capping the ends. With more practice, this will be a quick and easy process.

 

Recommendations:

• Set everything up on a table or counter before you get started to make it easier. 
• Wipe all of the product off the brushes when you are using them because what ends up running off the stem of the brush ends up being PLENTY of product, sometimes even enough for 2-3 nails.
• Cut paper towels into little squares and keep them handy. Not only are they lint free, but you do not want to use cotton balls because the fibers make a mess and can get stuck in the gel.
• Keep a small spray bottle with rubbing alcohol handy for spraying nails before you get started and for spraying nails after you have cured the top coat to clean off the sticky layer.
• Make sure you tighten all the bottles after you use them. Sometimes I thought all the gelish ones were closed but when I picked them up to put them away they were loose.
• Store all the bottles standing up. When I found the Red Carpet Manicure bottles at Ulta some of the were on their side and they were leaking all over the place and it made a sticky mess.
• Orange sticks are great to have handy because you can easily wipe off any of the gel polishes off your skin or cuticles.
• I used a nail file to file the edges of the nails I accidentally got gel on the cuticles. This way they aren't hanging off the edge of the nail begging to be snagged.
• DON'T PICK! I picked the hell out of the first set I did and even though they had chipped I could have gotten a few days wear out of them. But no, I picked at them and picked them right off the next day.  

I hope this helps if you are contemplating taking on this "art/beauty project"! As I get better and develop this skill, I will update with more recommendations. When I finally master the gelish+regular nail polish sandwich, I will post a separate blog with detailed instructions and the truth on how to do it perfectly :)

 

Jenn

 

UPDATE: I have played with this more and although I have not mastered the polish-gel sandwich yet, I am getting handier with the gel!

Here are gel polish nails I did with using the Konad Stamper for the patter on the tips. These lasted over a week.

Here is a recreation of a polish style that I saw on Pinterest. I used 3 coats of RCM Camera Shy and some loose silver glitter to create this look. It lasted 2 weeks.