Gel nails: Gelish starter kit

I love the long lasting indestructible-ness of gel nails, but I hate the price of a gel manicure and don't want to ruin my nails and hands with the gel-off process. So, I took a little plunge into the world of at-home gel nails.

I got a basic starter kit (different than the one above) at Tokyu Hands for 4500 yen. A bottle of color gel polish was about 1000 yen.

The first try was a bit of a disaster. I found I'm not a very good manicurist, and it is EXTREMELY important to not get any polish on your skin, as it really just turns into superglue. In addition, I got some weird bubbles on a few nails. I had to take it off immediately since it looked pretty bad. I soaked off in acetone for about 30 minutes total. Not optimal.

For my second try I decided to do a gel nail top-coat over regular polish. According to this article in Allure, this method is possible if you allow your regular polish to dry for 24 hours. This is perfect for me, since I love my Jin Soon nostalgia color, and have 24 hours to clean up any polish that is on my cuticles or skin. After drying the topcoat and wiping with the cleanser, I got that great gel nail shine!

I usually get about 5-6 days of chip free nails with a regular manicure. I get 2 weeks with a good gel manicure (and could even go longer if I could stand that "grow-out" portion at the base of the nail.) I will update on how long the gel topcoat over regular manicure lasts!

UPDATE: the experiment failed. the regular polish chipped and peeled off within a day of the gel top coat. : (