I don’t know about any of you guys, but I was so excited to try gel nail polish for the first time! I went with a classic French Tip style for my hands, but I ended up not getting my toes done. The entire process was a bit different from your typical manicure, they did the usual massage and nail care, but the gel polish requires a few steps. First, they paint with the “gel” and you have to sit with your hands under a UV light. Then they added the next top coat layer, which required you to put your hands under the light again.
And honestly the light was very hot and uncomfortable, thinking back, why did I subject myself to UV radiation? Once the coats were done setting the UV light, I was all good to go!
The gel polish lasted about 2 weeks before it started chipping and needed to be professionally soaked off in acetone. The removal process is yet another ordeal, just like the application of the polish. I had to sit for about 20 minutes with acetone-soaked cotton balls wrapped in aluminum foil encasing my nails. Once the polish was entirely dissolved, the manicurist cleaned up my nails and I could leave.
After I got the polish off, my nails felt very brittle and weak. Not a fan of that! Fast forward about a week, I start to notice this air bubble in my right-hand thumb nail and my left-hand ring fingernail. The air bubbles made my nails very flexible and had me pretty concerned about the state my nails were in. Slowly the air bubbles started to peel back, exposing my nail bed. As you can probably imagine, this was hella painful!
If you couldn’t tell I am not a huge advocate of gel nails. They’re expensive as heck, only last a little longer than regular polish, make your nails brittle, and could possibly disentegrate your nails. I can safely say I will never be getting gel nails again! This is just my personal horror story of gel nails, this doesn’t happen to everyone, but I don’t even recommend taking the chance!