café au lait: My first shellac aka gelish manicure

So, I’ve recently been enjoying treating myself to manicures since I gave up biting my nails 3-4 months ago. I had been biting my nails from as far back as I could remember and after several failed attempts at trying to give up over the years, I was able to finally bite the bullet and go cold turkey. Anyone who is a regular nail biter will know that it’s not an easy habit to give up but strangely, I haven’t found it too difficult and will do a post on how I stopped for those who may be interested in knowing.

Since January I have been going for regular manicures and when I last went (Saturday 14^th April), the nail technician persuaded me to try a shellac manicure instead of my normal manicure and polish. I thought “why not” as I had been interested in trying this out having read up on the results – the thought of a 2 week chip free manicure did appeal.

So after my cuticles had been pushed pack and nails filed neatly, the technician applied the base coat and then applied 3 coats of the shellac polish followed by the top coat. Following each of the coats my hands were placed under a UV lamp for 2 minutes. Lastly, as I removed my hands from the UV lamps following the top coat, she used a tiny bit of product on a tissue and wiped over each of the nails to remove any sticky film that may have been left. Below are the results;

The shellac application actually took the same amount of time that a standard manicure and polish would have taken, if you were to include the time you have to spend waiting for a manicure and polish to fully dry. It cost me £25 pounds compared to the £12 that I usually pay for a manicure and polish, so it is more than double the cost. However, from experience, a standard manicure and polish usually lasts me around 4-5 days before the polish starts to chip and I usually succumb by reaching for the polish remover on the 7^th day. Bearing that in mind, I was interested to see how the shellac would fare in comparison. I was somewhat sceptical of the supposed 14 chip free-ness, however, 10 days on and I have been very impressed with the results. For me personally it is unheard of to still have the majority of the polish still intact after 7 days. I will post pictures that I have taken over the course of my shellac experience so that you can see the full effects for yourself.

There are a few things that you need to bear in mind if you’re considering trying a shellac manicure. Firstly, when the 14 day period passes and the polish starts to chip away and you decide that you want to start afresh, you need to either have the polish removed professionally at a salon or purchase the shellac removal wraps along with 100% pure acetone. You cannot simply remove the polish with standard nail polish remover – I suppose this proves the point that the the shellac is heavy duty, however, I still may try this as I’m not particularly keen on having to use pure acetone on my already sensitive nails. I have seen that you can purchase the removal wraps cheaply off of ebay which is what I may do if I have no luck with standard polish remover. Further information on how to remove the polish can be found here

Another thing to be aware of is that you should perhaps opt for a colour that you know you will be happy to see on your nails for 2 weeks +. I’m not sure that my bubblegum pink was the best shade to go for as the colour hasn’t gone so well with some of my outfit choices so in hindsight perhaps a universal red would have been a better option. The other point to mention is that you will not have the luxury of picking from an array of different shades – at the salon I went to I only had a choice of 8 shades to choose from. The range of colours may depend on the particular salon that you go to so be prepared for this. The lack of choice may appeal to those of you who want to make an quick decision but for those of you who prefer a more unusual shade, the shellac may not cater to your needs. I understand that CND, who created the shellac nail polishes, are working on more shades which should be widely available soon so this problem is not likey to persist.

Overall, I would say that my experience to date has been a good one but I will provide an update after the 14 day period and will let you all know what the removal process was like.

The below pics were taken 6 days after the shellac manicure;