Beauty- Lets Pretend It's Still Tuesday (Gel Polish Kit)

I didn't forget about yesterday's post. I simply got to the one second at the end of my day when I had some time to write it out and chose to pass out instead. The nesting phase has come and I was a tornado yesterday, organizing while simultaneously creating an even bigger mess. Before I could finish I had to pick Henry up from school. Thankfully, after my husband came home from work, he and Henry called a friend to come over and lift so I had a few more hours to finish up.

What I really wanted to write about yesterday was my love for my gel nail polish LED kit, so that's what I'm going to do.

Before my husband and I had kids, he worked as a truck driver and I worked as an adoption coordinator. We were making really good money and other than making sure our few bills were paid we could do pretty much whatever we wanted. It wasn't unusual for me to go get my nails done then. I liked going into the salon, the smell of acrylic, getting pampered, the feelings of a freshly done set of nails. I've never been kind to my hands though so my sets never lasted long. I'd pick at them, or decide to start a new hands on activity that beat them up or I would do something and accidentally rip one off with my real nail attached. When we planned and conceived our first kiddo we were excited, but the economy was tanking and my husband lost his job. He got another job but with half the pay and then lost that one too. I was still working and the plan was to bring baby to work with me after he was born since my boss was amazing and we worked in a really casual environment out of a small house. Unfortunately, by the time Henry was born I also had to be let go. Giving up an occasional manicure was the last thing on my mind. I wasn't sure how we were going to afford a baby with one job and our income cut by 3/4. My husband and I had been discussing for a while the idea of him joining the military and it looked like it was time to make the decision. We did and it's the best decision we ever made. Even though we are still on one income and expecting our 2nd baby in June, we are older, wiser, have savings accounts and budgets.

Yes, we have a specific budget, but fun is included in that budget and I had been eyeballing the Sally Hansen and Sensationail LED kits for a couple of months. My husband was overseas and I had been having a hard time and decided to do something nice for myself. So I purchased the Sensationail LED kit at Target for about $50. That's the cost of 2 sets at the salon. I've done at least 15 sets since buying this kit, only spending extra money on new colors and one box of cleanser. The polishes run the same or a bit more than OPI polishes and I find them on sale regularly. This kit is not for applying acrylic tips but the polish is thick and hard and allowed my nails to grow really long so that it appeared as though I was wearing acrylics.

Click here to purchase on Target.com

I think my 2 main concerns about spending the money on this kit were number 1, that it wouldn't actually last as long as they said it would (up to 2 weeks)  and number 2, that I didn't have steady enough hands to get a professional look.

As it turns out, I do have a steady enough hand AND it really does last up to 2 weeks. As long as you aren't a picker like I am. And I've learned not to be. The manicure lasts so long and is so easy to do that I get impatient to try another color and end up removing it by week one. But don't be fooled, this is a very strong polish system. Right after I did my very first manicure using the LED gel polish, I went out and started building my garden by moving and stacking cinder blocks. I was hard on my hands and after it was all done I didn't have one chip. I just had some light scratches in the top coat and ended up quickly brushing on a new clear coat and curing it which took about 60 seconds.

Here are some things I've learned by trial and error with LED gel polishes.

You can mix gel polish kits. I have Sally Hansen, Red Carpet and Sensationail polishes. I've used Sensational polish with Sally Hansen, top and bottom gel coats and vice versa. This also goes for Red Carpet brand. All the primers work with the above mentioned polishes. Not sure about Gelish polishes because I have yet to buy one and I believe Gelish is set with a UV light and I just realized that I have no idea whether or not UV lights will set get polish the same way LED lights will. I'll have to investigate that.

Also, you can use your regular polish with the LED light but not for the purpose of drying them. An LED will not harden your regular polish. However, if you want to use your favorite color of non-gel polish, you can follow the instructions for your LED kit to put on your clear base coat and cure dry it with the light. THEN you can apply your regular polish. The trick to making it work is to apply a thing layer, let it dry completely, apply another layer (or however many you want), let that dry completely then use the clear gel top coat, cure dry with the light and you are done.

The key to getting a nice looking coat on your nails with this process is to let the regular polish thoroughly dry, otherwise when you put that top coat on and light cure, you will get ripples and possible bubbles in your polish. Also, make sure to cap your nails with the clear polish to keep it all from chipping.

One more tip is make sure your hand is being held flat while you apply polish. Try not to tilt them up to look at them before you dry them, otherwise the polish will float back to your cuticles and make an unpleasant edge around the bottom of your nails.

I cleaned my nails off with the intention of trying out a new color I recently bought for this post but never got around to doing it yesterday and my feet are currently in mourning as there was a freak accident involving moving furniture and I ripped my entire big toenail off of my right foot.

But here are some pictures of past pedi's and mani's.

Look at that glossy shine!

And finally, just to illustrate how long this polish can last, here is a picture of my toenails about 2 weeks into a pedicure. This was taken after I ripped my toenail. RIP big toe nail. You are really missed right now. Especially with sandal seasons coming so soon.

That's it for this week. Next week I'll post about my March ipsy bag.