How To Remove Gel Polish At Home

    

From this               to this! 

    Hi all! Today were going to be talking about removing gel nail polish, or shellac, safely at home. Gel manicures are great for so many reasons and its no wonder they're so popular. They're impossibly shiny, incredibly durable and long lasting. There is a huge array of colors to pick from and they're so easy to apply with absolutely no dry time! I mean what more could you want, right? One of the few downfalls of a gel mani though is the removal process. While they're super durable and long lasting, that also means they're not always the easiest thing to remove.

    Nevertheless, it's imperative for the health of your nails that gel is removed safely to ensure we don't do damage in the process. After years in the beauty industry and seeing the damage done to some peoples nails with the improper removal of gels, I think a guide on how to do it safely at home is in order. 

    Sometimes we may just tear and pick bits of it off (myself included at times) or file it off as a means of removing the gel, but this can be detrimental (think after you've torn your acrylics off). Improper removal such as peeling or filing can lead to the tearing off of layers of your natural nail, or filing it down and removing layers of the nail, which in turn causes them to be dry, uneven, brittle, and broken. This hinders the health and growth of your natural nails, so we have to be extra careful. I'm going to be giving you some helpful tips and tricks for removing gels the most gentle way possible at home. 

    The very first thing your going to want to do is to gather your materials for this process. We're going to need:

              

• a coarse nail file
• acetone polish remover
• cotton balls or cotton pads
• foil
• orangewood stick
• cuticle oil or hand cream

1.) File Off The Top Coat

  

     The very first thing your going to want to do is to take your coarse file and gently file the top coat of polish off your nails. The key here is to be gentle, we're not trying to remove the entire manicure, as this could result in filing too much and actually damaging the nail plate. This step is important because it allows the acetone to actually penetrate into the gel polish so it can be removed quicker and easier, which also means less work and healthier nails.

2.) Protect The Skin 

    This is the perfect time to apply some cuticle oil, hand cream, or both. Acetone can be extremely drying to the skin and nails, so it doesn't hurt to take the extra precaution. This will ensure that the skin around your nails doesn't get dried out, keeping them looking and feeling much healthier. 

3.) Soak And Wrap Your Nails

 

A good tip here is to pull open you cotton ball into a strip and tear that into smaller pieces, rather than using an entire cotton ball per nail. This is much easier to manage and saves money and cotton balls, yay!

  Take a piece of cotton and dip it in acetone (I like to carefully pour some of the acetone into the lid, this just makes things much easier for me). Place the soaked cotton on your nail (I prefer to start with my pinky and work my way towards my thumb. This allows you to use your thumb and index fingers while you work so you're not disrupting the cotton and foil on your nail). Once you have the cotton so its covering the entirety of your nail, take a piece of foil and wrap it over top the cotton(you could also use these or these ) This allows the cotton to stay in place and to stay damp. Repeat this process on every nail. You can either work one hand at a time, or if you're not struggling too much, you can do both hands. 

4.) Allow The Nails To Soak

    *If you're impatient like me, you can set a timer for 5 minutes to ensure you wait long enough to allow the acetone to dissolve some of the gel, otherwise the removal will be difficult.

    After all the nails have cotton and foil on them, wait 5 minutes (If you've filed the top coat off, 5 minutes is the perfect time to check the progress. I find that if I wait too much longer the acetone dries out, which makes the removal process that much longer and harder). At this point you're going to want to grab the foil of the first nail you started with(working one nail at a time), and using gentle pressure, squeeze the nail, pulling the cotton and foil off the nail. This will take all the loose gel with it. 

*if none or very little gel is coming off, you may need to reapply and wait 5 more minutes.

5.) Gently Push Off The Polish

    After you've removed the cotton and foil from the nail, you'll want to grab your orangewood stick and begin gently pushing the leftover gel off of your nail. I like to use the orangewood sticks rather than a metal pusher because it's much more gentle on the nail, whereas a metal pusher can sometimes cause damage and be too aggressive. Once you've finished with this nail, go back and repeat step 4 and 5 until you've done all the nails.

6.) Lightly Buff, Wash And Moisturize

    Now that you've gently removed all that gel polish, you can go in and lightly buff anything that remains on the nail. You'll want to do this pretty lightly as you've just done quite a bit to your nails, but this ensures there's no more polish and you have a smooth, clean surface. Then you can go ahead and wash all that acetone, dust, and gel from your hands and apply a nice cuticle oil and moisturizer.

    And that's it! Whew, now your nails are finally gel free, looking and feeling good, and there's no excessive damage done. That being said there are other ways to remove your gels safely at home. You could choose to just use the caps or you could fill a large bowl with warm water, and a smaller bowl inside that filled with acetone and soak them like that. I've also seen some of those gel polish removers (something like this), but I've never used them so I can't attest to their efficacy. Personally I think the way described here is the easiest, gentlest, and most cost effective way to get the job done. It takes a little bit of work and patience but its well worth it for clean and healthy nails. 

    At this point your nails should be in pretty good shape, so you could just enjoy them natural or apply a nail strengthener or top coat (I finished off with this nail treatment). This would also be the perfect time to prep your nails for another mani, which I plan to write another blog for, as well as for how to apply gels and Color Street nails, among other things.

    With that being said, thank you so much and I hope you've enjoyed reading this as much as I've enjoyed writing it. I also hope this was helpful and if you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions, write me a comment and I'll be sure to get back to you. Let me know if you learned anything new here or if there's anything you would like me to write about as it pertains to beauty. And thank you again!