DIY Gel Nails

A Few of My Favorite Things...

Day 5: DIY Gel Nails

I'm sure you've heard of gel nails. If you haven't, well you have now! When I first heard about this type of polish, I was getting my nails done at the salon. Depending on the salon, a gel nail manicure can cost anywhere from $20-$30+ and it lasts about 2 weeks. That is a lot of money! So, being the thrifty person I am, decided to take matters into my own hands. I will do them myself!

I looked at kits online and they were super expensive. I finally found one that I could afford and was appealing to me. I purchased this kit here. I ordered it from HSN for $. It came with everything I needed, polishes, curing light, remover, and cleaner. The reason I purchased this kit was because the polish was an all-in-one. Normal gel manis you have to do a base coat, cure, do the color, cure, color again, cure, top coat, cure. So it gets timely when you're doing our own because you can only cure one hand at a time. With this kit, The bas, top coat, and color are all in one polish. So all you have to paint is the color, cure it and then color again and cure. It saves a lot of time.

The colors for my kit included a light shade of pink, a coral shade of pink, and a taupe-gray. I love them all. However, the colors are limited so I did end up going to ULTA and buying a pretty, sparkly black shade which can be found here and the base and top coat of the same brand. The actual shade I purchased is "An Evening to Remember" and it's not for sale online for some reason, but they should definitely have it in-store.

In the photo above I am wearing the black shade I described above and the light pink from the Haute Polish kit.

Tips for applying:

• Apply THIN layers of polish. I know it says this on all gel nail polish instructions, but I thought I'd save time and do one thick coat of color so I wouldn't have to paint twice and cure twice. Wrong. It doesn't work that way. When it's too thick the polish will peel off and it looks horrible. Trust me. It may look too thin, but I promise it's not-- that is why you apply 2 coats.
• Make sure your thumbs get cured. I like to put both thumbs in at the same time after I've cured both hands just to make sure.
• Clean your nails with alcohol before applying polish. You don't have to buy special "cleaning" solution or pads because all they have in them is rubbing alcohol which is super cheap.

Happy Tuesday y'all! One week till Christmas!!!