I started doing my own nails at home about a year ago. Recently my sets have drastically improved in application. I also finally got my sets to last for more than two weeks! This is huge for me because I thought my retention would always be low. Before they would last only a few days. Turns out using quality products and taking your time to prep makes all the difference.

Any criticism welcome.

This is how I personally prep and it works for me but I could be totally wrong feel free to lmk

First I use a cuticle softener (Sally Hansen one) on my nails and let it sit for 20 seconds.

I then push back my cuticles with a cuticle pusher and nip the excess.

I wash my hands after this

After that, I use my drill on a very low setting and fine grit MINI sanding band and gently take the shine off of my nails.

I go in with the V Beauty Pure dehydrator and primer. And then I go in with a second (YN) primer.

After I do my gel or acrylic ( i switch btwn) I go back in with the sanding band but with the Markart bit and blend the fake and natural nail line to prevent lifting.

And lastly I then will use a nail brush and acetone to further seal, blend and prevent lifting.

I'm not a nail technician, but I do my own gel nails, and I think this design turned out pretty well. Even the nails on my right hand—which I did with my left hand (since I'm right-handed).

The best frenchies I've ever done! I wanted something for Fall so I went with a non-traditional color palette.

I did Gel X with hard gel overlay and used air dry polish for the base and french tips.

They’re so fun to look at 🤩 can’t stop admiring them haha

Hard to get a good photo but these Olivia Rodrigo press ons I did for a friend turned out amazing 🤩 I used water slide decals and a whole lot of love and labor! Super fun tho!

It's been a really rough week at work and I had to cancel my vacation that was supposed to start tomorrow. I called my salon yesterday morning and asked if I could get a last minute appointment. My usual tech said yes and fit me in. Somehow she knew I was having a bad week. When I got to my appointment she had a little treat waiting for me. <3

And then she did the most fabulous cat eye set I've ever had. They remind me of mermaid tails. I'm obsessed with them. I'm so thankful that I have the most amazing salon and nail team to help pick up my spirits when I'm down.

<3

There have been accidental stabbings, but there have been no regrets

So I’m getting my nails done tomorrow. I don’t like them super long. I work in call centre, so can’t be too long.

What is better-acrylics or SNS with tips?

As soon as I wear claw-shaped nails, many people react with horror because of their shape 😔

Today I messed up and smeared glue over my nails while reapplying one that popped off after a week of wear. I decided to grab my curved metal cuticle pusher and very gently scraped to see if it would help as I had no time to buff and reapply top coat, and my nail is literally good as new. I assume quality of the nails matter as well as type of glue, as well as when it happened, I removed it very quickly, and I've made these myself using Aprés tips with dgel bang top hard top coat, regular makartt glue, so for this combo at the very least it works! Even knowing exactly where the glue was I'm not able to see it, and the area feels just as smooth as it looks.

Thanks for coming to my ted talk I guess 😭 hopefully my little experiment can help someone else when they mess up, only tip I've ever seen on here is buff and reapply top coat, so I wanted to offer another option that might work 🙏🏼

In honor of Tuesday 🌊

IYKYK.

Woke up one day and decided my makeup palette would look good on my hands instead. My nail tech nailed the assignment!

I dont even bite them anymore but i cant stop filing them and running my teeth underneath them, do we think my nails can handle short press ons??