I love nail polish but I hate all the bother involved for such a short wear time. Traditional nail polish seems to chip in minutes on me! I discovered gel/shellac manicures a few years ago and I’ve never looked back. Oh yeah! Red nails all day and all night! If only my hair would grow black without greys and my nails would grow red. Sigh! But gel nails are the next best thing and I’ve been getting a fresh gel polish every few weeks for years. But I’ve gone rogue! I’ve ditched the salon and decided to DIY my nails! I am an obsessive researcher, I’ve worked out what’s what and why. So settle in because I have information out the wazoo!
So what is gel polish?
For the uninitiated, I’ll give you some background. As you know, regular nail polish is basically a lacquer paint that air dries and it easily removed with nail polish remover and a cotton round. Gel (or shellac) polish will not air dry, it needs to be cured with ultraviolet light from a UV or LED lamp. And instead of be wiped off with nail polish remover, it must be soaked in acetone, where it will blister off and any remainder can be gently pushed off (not scraped!).
The benefit is that the polish is very shiny and chip resistant. It can last for weeks! I tend to redo mine about every three weeks because the nail growth becomes obvious but I have had polish remain unchipped for five whole weeks when I was too busy/lazy to redo it. Above you see nearly 5 weeks on the left and 4 weeks on the right!
Gel can be applied over natural or acrylic nails but I am only talking about natural nails here. Acrylic nails need to be treated differently, so I will leave that to the pro’s. Gel adds some extra strength to natural nails and I don’t feel like it does any damage if it is properly applied and removed (see my real nails above). As you will read below, I’ve had much more damage in salons than DIY.
Why go DIY?
When I started getting gel polish, I had a nail tech who was awesomely picky and almost OCD. Every manicure was pretty much perfect. She cared about my nail health, was very hygienic and took the time to soak my polish off in the proper manner. It’s was great! But she went off to pursue other things and I was left with nowhere to go but the el cheapo nail place in the mall. You know the ones, huge places, walk in appointments and very little English.
It was okay I guess. Sometimes a nail or two was lumpy or had missing areas. The hygiene was pretty deplorable, I once saw my manicurist using a set of cuticle clippers to trim some silicone from a drain and then put them to my finger! I protested and a clean set was produced but I did have two infected fingers, complete with puss and a course each of oral antibiotics, in the time I was going there. Be ever so lucky I didn’t photograph the gory details!
The last straw was when I explained that my nails were my own, natural nails and the English barrier got in the way. I watched in horror as she dremmeled my nails (on the top where the polish was) and even as I was pulling my hand away she managed to reduce my long nail to a nub with just a sweep of the thing. You should have seen the horror on her face once she realized! There was no way that even beginner me could possibly screw it all up so very badly. DIY was the new nail salon!
Okay, so what do you need to go DIY?
There are a few brands of at home gel polish available here in Australia. I read hours of reviews on the options here and the only brand that seemed to stack up was Gelish Mini, which is no surprise because Gelish is a salon brand. The Gelish Minis are designed for home use and have the best colour range of any of the brands you can get in Australia. And even though it’s ‘mini’ you get 9ml of product per bottle, the full size is only 14ml, which means you’re really not missing much! There are two stockist here Hairhouse Warehouse & Price Attack. The Gelish Mini Basix Kit has most of the stuff you need to get started and is definitely cheaper than buying the items separately. I highly recommend picking this up! Of course you’ll need some coloured gel polishes too.
A UV or LED lamp is mandatory or your nails will stay a sticky mess! Gelish has several models of their own, available at the same places you can buy Gelish. Chickettes nail blog (a great amateur gel nail blog) has reviews on the Gelish lamps but if you want to keep costs, keep reading for what I bought.
While there is a bottle of cleanser and a bottle of remover in the Basix kit, I find them messy. I prefer to use medical alcohol swabs instead of the cleanser and acetone nail sachets for removal. The remover sachets are pretty cool, they look like an alcohol swab but have a pad soaked in acetone inside instead. There is a thin bit of plastic that peels away to reveal a sticky strip. So you cut the top open, insert your finger tip and wrap the sachet tautly around you finger and stick the flaps of the sachet to itself with the sticky strip. Genuis! I buy both in bulk from eBay.
You will need some basic nail supplies too like files, orange wood sticks and buffer. And an old hand towel and some paper towel but you probably have those kicking around.
So what does this all cost?
When I looked into the whole gel DIY I had a Violet Beauregarde moment – I want it NOW Daddy! I wanted all the colours and all the things and I was tempted by those cheap gel polishes until I realized most of it was FAKE!
There are tons of fake, knock off gel polishes on eBay, Amazon etc. Not to mention highly questionable off brands like Bluesky. The terrible stories of burning, blistering, pain and horror (a girl had to have nails surgically removed! OMG!) are not worth it. Pay the RRP and ensure your safety! The photo above comes from a great post about spotting fakes.
That said, eBay is a fine place to buy a cheap lamp. Look for a 36 watt, 4 bulb UV light with a 120 sec timer function. You do need to replace the bulbs but it’s still cheap. Mine was $18 including postage. I think one that fits all 4 fingers and thumb at once are best but do what suits you. All gel polishes set under UV light but only some under LED. LED is quicker and if you’re worried about exposing your hands to UV, you might prefer LED.
If you pop into your local salon, you’re going to pay somewhere between $25-$35, depending on where you go. You’re probably going every 2-3 weeks. So let’s assume you go 22 times a year (2 & a bit weeks apart) and you pay $25. That’s $550 a year!
To get started you’ll need:
eBay light $18
Gelish Mini Basix $49
Gelish Mini Colour $24
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Total $91 or about 3 salon manis
Which is not bad at all! I have been doing my own manis regularly, every two to three weeks, for a year plus manis for my nieces, sister and mum too. I haven’t run out of any products yet but am getting close to finishing my gloss top coat and have bought a backup. I see that I may need a new base coat/foundation in coming months.
If you are really trying to squeeze your penny, check out local second-hand websites like Gumtree. There are many people who go DIY and then don’t get into it and sell off whole set up kits. Or salons that are closing down or clearing out. You still need to be really careful about fakes (they might have bought a fake and not realized) but you can sometimes pick up a bulk buy bargain.
Once you have the basics, you can add a colour polish now and again and still be ahead on the cost of salon versions. Plus you will have colours that you love, that will last ages! The beauty of DIY is that you always get what you want because you are in control. It doesn’t take long to get the hang of things, even my early manis were as good as some of the ones I paid for! My nieces prefer me doing their nails because they can take ages to decide on the colour they want and if they want glitter or an accent nail and they say I am neater than the local salon! I’m really happy with DIYing my nails and am enjoying experimenting with colour and nail art.
I know this has been a crazy long post! I spent ages researching and reading to find out this stuff (it was truly exhausting!) so that I could condense it down for you as basic resources. When I was starting there were tons of helpful post but none like this that put all the basic info together. I am super grateful to blogs that helped me to learn. Now you have the basic what and when! The more fun part of this is the actual nail painting part or the second part of this post (coming soon is right here) which covers all the application and removal stuff I wished I knew before I started, so stay tuned for that xxxx
P.S. This may seem sponsored (I wish Gelish Mini wanted to sponsor me) but it’s is not. I just wanted to fill you in why my nails (as seen in tutorials) are always gorgeous lol!
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