At the beginning of the year, I decided I was done with traditional generic nail polish. You spend an hour doing your nails only to have the polish chip in a day or two. I'm also not the girl to get her nails done at the salon. I started researching my options—gel vs Shalac. I landed on the gel. I went to Amazon and purchased a kit with everything I needed. Or so I thought. I tried it out and liked it. Soon after though, I noticed that the colour still wasn't lasting. The polish would peel off my nails a few days later.
Eventually, through the summer I talked to a handful of people about it, including my mom's pedicurist. I discovered I needed to use a primer or a dehydrator on my nails before using a base coat. Mom's pedicurist told me that there was likely still oil in my nails, causing the polish to come off. She showed me the primer she uses and mentioned using rubbing alcohol as well before applying the base coat.
I eventually went to Sally's Beauty to get the rest of the supplies. Before going I went on Google and double-checked what product I needed. I was under the impression that primer and dehydrator were the same thing. FYI, they aren't. I ended up walking out of Sally's Beauty with the dehydrator. Then I got home and realized that dehydrator is simply fancy rubbing alcohol and that I actually wanted primer and not dehydrator. I'm a little disappointed in Sally's Beauty. They had the perfect opportunity to upsell me on both products, but they didn't. They respected what I thought I needed and that was it. Basically, I'm thankful that they weren't pushy and at the same time wish they had been.
On the following Monday, a coworker suggested that I just use the dehydrator and forget about the primer and see if the dehydrator would be enough. Friend, it worked. It has now been almost two full weeks and the polish is still on. My nails have grown a bit and are ready to be redone, but the polish is intact. I also struggle with brittle nails that break easily. One of the people I talked with also went to school for nails and said that doing my nails at home or at the salon would be good for them because the hard layer of gel will give my nails strength. A shield in a sense. Someone once told me that painting your nails was bad because it suffocates them and they cannot breathe. I don't know if they were correct or not. All I know is that my nails still grew while I had the gel on which suggests that they are just fine.
I'm going to take off the polish tonight (Friday) and then when I do a hot oil treatment for my hair in the morning I will give my nails the same treatment before I give myself another manicure Saturday morning. My next step will be to work on perfecting my polish application. I tend to be a little sloppy with the nail polish brush. So I need to practice doing that better.
I wanted to share all of this with you because I was excited to finally have answers for all my nail problems and I want to share that with you and potentially solve you nail polish problems too. And now it is time to watch my nails grow to the length I want them and in theory maintain that length with the help of regular gel manicures.
God Bless
~Hannah
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