Confessions of a gelicious nature

Tad pic heavy!
I have a confession to make. For the past many weeks I have been guinea-pigging gel polish.  I know gel polish has a bad rap and I am an advocate for healthy natural nails. So I feel like I am selling myself out. But, I also paint my nails heaps of times – sometimes in one week – and that is abnormal. So many clients and people ask me... "how long does it last?". I always chuckle at that as my immediate thought is: well, how long do you want it to last? A year? Ten months?? Really... what do they think? People want nail art or polish to last forever, at the same time they do nothing to keep their nails healthy, neat or non-chipped. And who wants to look at blue forever???? I get bored too easily. So my thought was to offer gel nails (no tips, just on natural nails) in my studio to those who want them. We all know that art lasts much longer on a gelled nail than on natural nails. But in order for me to honestly offer a gel nail mani I had to be sure that 1) your own nails do not get ruined in the process and 2) it actually works.

So after some research I decided on the gelicious nail system from Australia (gelicious website). The LED lights are safe, curing takes 30 seconds a layer, no need for a base coat, acetone takes it all off, their colours looked like proper nail polish and their prices are very fair (plus free postage!). To cut this really short right now, I will say I am hooked and in the meantime I have 13 shades of polish. This is not to say it did not have a teething stage. Nor that I am foregoing all other polish - what, am I crazy???
The first mani I did was using the nude Recover. Took no pics. But Recover is a sheer nude, perfect for a natural look, under other polish as a base or for French. It probably lasted two days before chipping. Not really chipping, the polish loosened itself from my nail. Very clean, but still loose and therefore came off in bits. Not impressed, was I. So, I thought about this some more, remembered what my manicurist used to do back in the Stone Age (!) and did some research.

My second attempt was with their bold dark blue, Yacht Race. I bought this as they were out of the black and I wanted to offer a good dark base for duochromes and holos. This stayed on perfectly for four days before I had to touch up two nails as the gel had loosened. Still not ideal. So more refinement was needed.

The blue is gorgeous on its own, though. A navy blue with shimmer flecks that catch the light. I practiced some more - all unknown to everyone as I covered up my gelled nails with normal polish. Then came my breakthrough (I will elaborate on this further down).

day one

day eight (8)

My Dressed Up Nude challenge mani. As a base for this challenge I used a normal gel mani of Recover, that very sheer nude. After the nail art (you can read all about that in the link in above line) I top coated with Out the Door. I top coated again after three days. And that is all I did to my nails for over a week. A whole week!!!

You can see from the pics all taken on day 8 that the mani was still perfect. Absolutely no chips or loosening. The art was still perfect, shine still there. Excuse the blue blobs but I was working on jewellery. I was very impressed with gelicious now that I figured out how to make it work. So, onto another mani....

My current mani is 7 days in as I write this and looks just like in the pics. This is Hit the Gym, a fab tomato red. This is two coats and then top coated. Each layer is cured for 30 seconds (I promise I will talk about the method soon!). Since it is dry immediately, I got right into nail arting. This is a great plus if you want to do tape manis as the base is dry immediately and you can tape away!

I started with four dots of China Glaze Happy Go Lucky to create a flower. Then topped with two or three smaller dots of OPI My Paprika.... A small white dot was added in the middle of each flower and around to connect them. A bit a black added depth, or something. This was top coated with Out the Door and during this week I top coated once. I will remove this tomorrow as I want something new.

right hand

So, how does this all work???? The great thing about gel is that you can goof off with it and make your nails perfect before curing. I use really thin coats. In fact, the first coat doesn't even cover properly. I finish four nails on my left hand, then four on my right, then the thumbs (so three cycles). Before I cure each coat I do cuticle clean up (also the sides) and make sure my lines are neat. If it cures, it is there forever. Here is what I have learned and how I do it:

1) Totally totally totally clean your nails. I mean, totally. All polish off and wash and dry them. Then I use rubbing alcohol and clean the surface three times!!! The nail has to be absolutely oil free (otherwise loosening occurs as the gel has nothing to stick to).

2) One nail at a time, apply a thin coat of polish to your clean nail. I remove as much polish as I can from the brush (gel polish is thick and the brush is short) and apply. Seal all edges with polish! This is a crucial step. You must paint the tips and sides with polish so that the gel runs around the nail and adheres to the undersides. Using rubbing alcohol (not acetone!) and a brush I do cuticle clean up and remove any unwanted polish. Then the next nail. I do four fingers then cure under the LED for 30 seconds.

3) Same procedure again. Another coat of polish to the nails. This can be a tad thicker. If you see a clearish patch just go over it again. And seal all sides and tip again. And do cuticle clean up again. Cure for 30 seconds.

4) Same procedure with their top coat. I paint this one like normal top coat, not super thin or thick. Seal all tips and sides and do cuticle clean up. Cure for 30 seconds. When done, saturate a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol and wipe your nails. This will remove the sticky gel topping, set the nails and give them shine. These four fingers are now done, dry and finished.

5) Repeat with the other hand, then your thumbs.

How does it all come off? For the nail nerds out there, this will be a common procedure: use the aluminum foil glitter off method. I use 100% acetone and cotton balls (I cut them in half). Put a cotton ball on your nail and wrap it in foil. Wait at least 10 minutes. You can't really hurt anything by leaving it on longer. When you remove the foil/cotton the gel polish would have loosened up like flakes. Just rub off with the soaked cotton. If it is not all off, remove what you can, rewrap and wait another couple of minutes. The polish is pretty gooey and soft, so you can scrap it off with your nail without damage.

Above are my nails after all of these gel sessions. The thinness at the tip of my middle finger has been there forever so is not from the gel, same with the unevenness on my pinkie (don't know what caused that). You can see that they are smooth and solid. The gel only comes off with 100% acetone (or acetone based remover). I use 100% acetone (cheaper) even though they do not suggest it. All it does is dry out your nail bed but danger is there only if you do that four times a day every day! Cuticle oil and all is good. If I want a change up during the gel period, I remove the "art" or normal polish with acetone-FREE remover and do another design.

Hope this wasn't too long. It seemed like I had a lot to say today!
Oh, here's more info about the mani process.