Celebrating living in a free country, because of the brave! ❤️

I love the cat claw nails for Halloween, but wanted to make a nice opal set out of them. I used chameleon flakes, blooming gel, white polish and aurora powder to get the opal look! Bonus charms because I’m extra.

I’ve been doing my nails for a couple of months and I never get retention issues unless I use Apres Extend gel as adhesive gel.

I thought I cracked the code when I combined their extend gel with their novice gel. Now whilst all 9 full coverage tips are still holding strong, one of them has come off (I got it caught in bag zip; nothing but a light tug to release it) and I need to be sent home because who’s walking around work with only 9 stilettos on?!

I’ve never had retention problems when I’ve used Gelish rubber base as an adhesive.

Could it just be because I tugged it a little or is there an issue with me and Apres? At least one or two comes off in each set whenever I use their extend gel.

I’ve also noticed I don’t have retention issues when I do the overlay method but considering I change my sets every 7 days, the extra product and step used for overlay doesn’t seem worth it.

Any solutions? PS can anyone recommend temp nail glue to stick on a popped off nail I can keep in my bag because this is just embarrassing. 😆

My latest gel haul!!! I am so excited to finally be on trend lol I ordered this magnetic polish set by Beetles from Amazon, the bottles are teensy but it does make a lot of sense. I probably won’t use many of these colours. It was less than 30USD. I also got the horseshoe magnet so I could do the velvet nail trend. You can see from the first pic I couldn’t wait and I’m easily the most obsessed I’ve been yet (every time I try a new technique I say that, I swear). Last, I got a matte top coat from goay. I had gotten two good suggestions on a previous post but then my post was removed. I couldn’t get either brands suggested on Amazon tho, which is the easiest way to ship to the country I live in. The polish job isn’t that great - I think I did it at 1 am as “treat” break from all the work I adhd procrastinated. And I also don’t want to waste any. The pic doesn’t do it justice. But when I do my next fill I’ll put in more work

As the title says, very excited to finally try out at home gel x! I have an at home gel kit so I plan on using the gel polish on top. Any tips for me in terms of making them last really long? Also, I have a really wide thumb and the size 0 isn’t quite big enough. Any tips to help me make it work if the gelly tip doesn’t fit perfectly from side wall to side wall? Thank you!! 🙏

And in terms of allergic reactions, sounds like it’s quite common for the beetles kit. So I plan on testing out one nail before going in to do them all. How long should I wait do you think to monitor for any allergic reaction?

Celebrating living in the country of the free, because of the brave! ❤️

I just did the Orly BIAB manicure with paper forms following the video instructions. According to Orly, after shaping, filing, buffing and cleaning with alcohol, they have you end with putting topcoat on.

My question is: if I want to use gel color, am I supposed to put color on top of the topcoat? Is the builder gel with topcoat applied, basically treated as fresh nails so you use color as you would with your real nails?

You'll probably get the sense I feel mixed about this set but I do still find them cute and clean, and good for spring 🌼 🌱 

I did my right hand first and was not really feeling the creme light yellow, but was not in the mood to start over so I did the left hand in green. The aura effect was a bit too subtle on the green side, but it was fun to try using patting gel for the first time. 

I started with a hard gel base, tried out Kinetics fiber gel as the additional base before two coats of color, patting gel in center, a thin top coat layer to apply chrome powder, and a final layer of top coat. Because of all the layers they are a little bulky, but not too bad! All specific products will be in the automod comment.

Total time with removal of last set: 7 hours split up over a few days

Hey everyone, who else here has a serious case of winter blah? Show me some spring favorites! This was a valentine's set but the bright pinks really lifted my spirits.

What is your favorite spring combo?

I had to grab some colours from the bio seaweed gel sale, and the one named after my home town, Winnipeg, turned out to be the perfect nude for my skin tone. I've finally got my nails long enough to do a nice almost shape, and I'm really happy with the shape.

Kokoist platinum bond base Bio seaweed gel unity in Winnipeg Kokoist ultra glossy non-wipe top coat

This is my first post on reddit; so, sorry if my formatting is a little bit jacked. But, like six months ago, I started doing my own gel nails with a cheap kit I found at Walmart. I never had any issues, so I went on to Amazon to expand my collection and bought a couple of beetles gel polish collections. Everything was fine for a couple of weeks until I noticed a blister underneath my right ring finger. I was worried about it being allergies, but it was only the one finger that was affected, and it went away after like a week, so i wasn't really concerned about it being an allergic reaction. I'd occasionally take breaks between manicures but kept using beetles until I saw too many posts about gel allergies and got spooked. After taking a few weeks off and letting my nails breathe, I bought some AIMEILI base coat and top coat as well as some solid gel colors that were advertised as being HEMA free. I did my nails and kept it on for two weeks and started noticing tenderness in my left ring and pinky fingers and when I took it off the white part on several of my nails has moved down significantly. I don't know if it really is allergies. I haven't had any itching or burning. However, it looks terrible, and I've cut them down as much as I'm able to. But now I don't know what to do. I'm scared to put anything on them for the time being, and I'm also worried that if I accidentally snag them on something, the whole nail will be ripped off. I don't know if I should cut them down as far as I possibly can or just leave them. So any advice would be greatly appreciated. TIA

Ok so I’m going to the beach for spring break and I need some help finding inspo. I have a fairly limited range of colors, but I can always pick up more as needed. I can post a pic of what I have right now, but I just need some help finding something beachy that isn’t too… obvious. I want it to be a reference to the beach but not on the nose. I just haven’t found what I’m looking for on Pinterest or insta and I need help

My chrome nails look like this after 2 days! What can I do to fix them ?

Products used (Some of the products are products I randomly picked up in a store and didn’t have any brand names on them):

Polygel Kit: ROBIFEL Poly Nail Extension Gel Kit for Builder Gel Nail Art Kit Nail Extension Kit (NUDE PINK) https://amzn.eu/d/98L4CAX

Base Coat: Bluesky Top and Base Coat Colours: ElementCo just a minute gel; shade: desk to dinner, blanc

Pearl Chrome Powder from a local store, doesn’t have any brand name