My Thoughts On Gel Nails!

Good morning! I love to hear from you all and yesterday’s post seemed to get some attention!

I think we can all agree that no matter what our age, we want to dress attractive. Just because some of us our maturing (ahem) doesn’t mean we want to dress old and frumpy.

Women can look fabulous at any age! So let’s have fun with it!

One of my sweet readers reminded me that a few weeks ago I wrote a post about Gel nails vs. Acrylic nails. At the time, I was trying to decide if I wanted to try the Gel nails for the first time.

I did get Gel nails (technically I got Shellac nails) and I loved them!

They lasted a little over two weeks and they looked pretty good the entire time. Yes, I should have taken a picture but I forgot!

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do, keep them, or have them removed. I love having pretty nails but I don’t like paying for them. Make sense?

This past Saturday one of them started peeling off. I couldn’t help but start peeling on the rest of them. I know, that’s probably not what I should have done but they came off really easy.

When I had them put on the nail technician used a regular file to rough my nails up (very little damage). Peeling them off did a little damage but nothing compared to when I take my acrylic nails off.

Here are my nails today~

As you can see, I think the gel nails look nicer but I’m not sure I want to pay $35 every two weeks. I would like to get regular manicures to keep my nails looking nice, which is much cheaper.

This time of year I also like to get regular pedicures since I’ll be wearing lots of sandals.

So what are your thoughts? What do you do or use to make your nails look good?

Beauty For the Heart~~Do you ever have one of those day? You know the kind, when you feel~~blah. There’s nothing drastic going on but just some little things.

Maybe someone has said something that hurt your feelings, or maybe the kids are fighting, the house is a disaster, everything you put on is tight, ugh!

When you’re having one of those days, and we ALL do, remember Nehemiah 8:10b, “the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Choose JOY!

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  1. I have to admit I’m a nail junkie! I used to have the long french tipped acrylic nails. However, about a year ago, I went to short natural nails with shellac. I love that it lasts two weeks and rarely wears or chips. And I can choose from a large variety of colors – or have white tips with a natural pink nail. OPI are the only shellac polishes that I select because I swear they are the best, hands down!

    I have never peeled my shellac off – that is what causes the damage. And my nail tech never roughs up my nails. My nails are beautifully healthy when we remove the shellac each time and the cost is only $25 every two weeks. If it were up to me to keep my own nails done, I would never make the time. Not to mention, I enjoy my time at the salon and the luxury of the hand rub and paraffin dip after my nails are done.

  2. Also. For all you DIYers. Did you know your risking serious allergic reactions caused by over exposure by doing your own nails? Your not trained to know that your doing things correctly, and by buying these cheap sets from Walmart your risking your health I’m afraid.
    For those that say buy shellac on eBay or online, your probably buying a fake product, and by curing this product with a cheap crappy lamp will probably cause you health issues in the future because your not citing your cheap fake shellac or hellish properly,

  3. Well lets start with the basics. I am a qualified nail tech of 10 years. CND trained (cnd produce shellac) shellac isn’t a gel polish, it’s a hybrid polish, it’s part gel, part normal varnish. There is nothing else like it on the market, I’m only putting this across so people realise it is different to others on the market.
    I don’t know where you got your shellac done, but they should NOT have roughed your natural nail up before applying the shellac, shellac is a natural nail product, that if used correctly, will cause no damage at all to the natural nail. As I say to people. It’s the tech that will cause the damage,not the product. :-/
    The only damage that should have happened to your nail is the damage that would have been caused by yourself which you rightly recognise, when you peeled the shellac off. You clearly know that you shouldn’t have done that. Lol.

    It’s nice to see a review of shellac where the person will actually admit how much better it is for your nails!! Although I would deffo look into getting a nail tech that applies it properly, you would notice a definite difference in the condition of your nails. X

  4. I rarely polish my nails because I can’t stand it when they chip. Something that always makes me feel better is having my toes polished; always makes me feel girlie!

  5. Cyndi,

    I bought the kit with the light you get at WalMart. It works exactly like the way they did it at the salon. I did it a couple of weeks ago and they still look great. It even came with a nice Raspberry colored polish. I wasn’t to thrilled to hear on one of the morning talk shows that women are showing signs of skin cancer from using the LED light needed to cure the Gel nails! They admitted the study is relatively new and not many tests have been done, but they compared it to tanning beds causing cancer!! I admit I “loved” the tanning beds, but being diagnosed with Basal cell skin cancer (on my nose of all places) and having to have it removed and having “mini” plastic surgery because of it, I am dismayed with the Gel nail thing now 🙁

  6. Cyndi , you might want to look at Red Carpet Manicure. It’s available at Ulta. I believe they now have two different lights and a previous commenter has said she would go for the LED one if she were doing it again. Also, someone (can’t remember who) has a similar product that’s available at Walmart. Also, Kiss has a gel product that doesn’t require a lamp. It’s available everywhere. I believe Kate reviewed it on her blog.

    I have only ever had one professional manicure and pedicure. I’m sure I would really like it but I cannot really afford it in terms of time or $$.

  7. Blah….is exactly what I’ve been feeling. It can sometimes be hard to choose joy…but I sure am trying.

    I’m not much help in the nail dept. I used to always get acrylic nails because I once had a job where I was pointing at papers asking people to “sign here and here” so having nice hands and nails was a must, expensive and after doing it so many years, I got tired of it. I had a nail tech take them off because I couldn’t stand doing it myself.

  8. I purchased the products and the light, and I do gel nails at home. (I can’t justify the expense either, but I love pretty nails!) There are many tutorials on YouTube, and you can buy gelish or shellac online. You get the hang of it after the first few times.

  9. I just had my first shellac yesterday and I am loving them so far. I’m like you though…I don’t like to pay for pretty nails. I usually do my own manicures and pedicures because it’s timely and costly! I think I might keep up with the shellac because it’s keeping me from biting my nails! Score! Loved your video duo on Traci’s blog. You guys CRACK me up!