As I talked about in my last post, gel manicures are insanely popular right now! I got a gel manicure about a week ago and because of chipping, I took it off today (not going to talk about my feelings on gel polish too much in this post, if you want to read about my gel polish experience go here :)
Just so you know what I had to remove, this is what my gel manicure looked like after one week of wear:
Anyways, I don't know about the salons you go to, but at the salons in my town, they charge you when you get them to remove your gel polish, fake nails, etc. ($10!). After removing my own gel polish the first time I got a gel manicure and making some mistakes, and watching a nail tech remove someone else's gel manicure when I got my nails done this past time, I have figured out how to remove gel polish at home. It is easy, uses products you most likely already have (if not, they are easy to find), and removes the polish efficiently without killing your nails.
Here's what you'll need:
-Aluminum Foil
-Cotton Balls
-100% Pure Acetone
And yes I know that Acetone is not good for your nails, but it's the only way to get the stuff off and it's not like you will use it every day.
The first step is to cut your aluminum foil into five strips (I do one hand at a time). There is really no rhyme or reason to the shape of these strips as you will see in the picture, you basically just need them to be long and wide enough to cover your nails and wrap around your finger.
Next, soak your cotton ball in the acetone. It doesn't have to be dripping wet or anything, it just needs to have a little more than what you would normally use to remove polish. If you get too much its no big deal, getting too little on the cotton ball would be a problem.
After the cotton ball is properly soaked, place it on the nail. Grab one of your strips of aluminum foil and wrap it around the nail and then the excess around the finger. There really isn't a certain way to do this, you basically just want it to secure the cotton ball onto your nail and have the foil around your finger so that the cotton ball won't slip around.
This is helpful in two ways: for one, the foil creates heat around the nail which will help the polish come off easier. It also secures the cotton ball to the nail so that you can move around, walk around, mess with your computer, etc., and not have to worry about the cotton ball sliding off.
Do this to all five nails and you will end up looking like this:
Let this sit for about 15-20 minutes :) Some people claim that they don't need it to sit this long, but I have found that letting it sit this long makes it much easier to physically take off and prevents scraping that damages the nail (I learned that the first time I did this).
When taking off the foil, make sure you slowly drag the cotton ball across the nail while taking it off. When the cotton ball and foil are removed, your nail will either be completely free of polish or there will still be some left on the nail. If you have left the cotton on long enough and used pure acetone, you should be able to remove the leftover polish by either going over it with the cotton ball a time or two more (like how you usually remove nail polish) or by simply scraping at the leftover polish with your thumb nail. I hate to say "scrape" when talking about removing the excess polish because if this process is done right, the polish should come off by just lightly scraping at it with your thumb nail.
As weird of a picture as this is, this is what the cotton ball should look like after you remove your gel polish. You can see that the polish basically peeled away into the cotton ball.
This is what my nails looked like right after the polish was removed. They obviously need a little TLC, but they're not too bad!
After this there was some of what seems to be the base polish they used left on a couple of my nails that I couldn't seem to get off.
After this, I cut, filed, and buffed my nails and also nipped my cuticles (I hadn't buffed my nails or trimmed back my cuticles in a while so my nails needed it, but these steps aren't necessary. I would suggest at least lightly buffing your nails though). I also went ahead and did my usual at-home manicure routine, using my favorite strengthening base coat (NailTek 2 Intensive Therapy-- a review on this should be coming soon).
I hope this helps you out! I know that it may seem difficult after reading all this (I try to be very detailed) but it's really easy and fairly quick! If you have any questions feel free to ask.
Thanks so much for reading :)
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