Cassie DeNisco

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At Home Gel Nail Polish Tips & Tricks

Last fall I shared my powder gel polish review but recently I’ve been more obsessed with the simple regular gel polish. I have finally found a good mix of tricks and products to give you the best at home gel nail polish mani or pedi so I’m going to share with you all my secrets.

Nail Prep

The first step is always to remove my old polish and then cut, file, and push back my nail beds. I use this kit from Amazon that has everything I need for this stage. I also make sure to buff out my nails very well. This is probably the most important step so that the polish will adhere and last longer.

Polish

at home gel polish

I actually randomly found these brands on Amazon but they work really well. This base and top coat set is not only inexpensive but also lasts. I usually can go about a week and a half with the polish on. This gel brand, Aimeili, is great because they have colors and have a nice formula. I feel like the polish is the perfect mix and not to thick or runny.

UV Lamp

at home gel polsih

This lamp is honestly what has made such a difference for me. I had a light before this and it was not nearly as powerful as this one is. Not only does this light have different time settings, it’s also big enough for your whole hand to go in at one time. After I cure my base coat, I go in with two coats of my color and finish off with my top coat.

My at home gel nail polish is seriously that simple. I love having my nails done but one thing that this pandemic has taught me is I value my time more. I’ll still get a professional mani pedi for a big occasion but for the other times, I’ll do it at home so I’m comfy and not wasting 2 hours of my day.

I hope this post gave you a few good recommendations to start your at home nail journey. It took me awhile to get good at doing my own nails but once you get the hang of it, you might never go back!

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DIY Powder Gel: Does it Work?

I have been getting my nails done religiously for years but because of COVID, it stopped me in my tracks. I love a good powder gel mani but does the DIY powder gel you can buy off of Amazon cut it? Well lucky for you I tried it out and I’m going to give you my honest review of DIY powder gel.

diy powder gel

After doing some research, I ended up purchasing this kit on Amazon for $39.99. This kit pretty much came with everything I needed like the colors, the polishes and even a fluffy duster brush. I already had a cuticle cutter, a buffer square and also a cuticle pusher thing. I found all of those to be really helpful to have on hand and suggest you grab too!

This kit came with really nice instructions which made it easy to use. I started off filing my nails and then cleaning up the cuticles. The instructions said to make sure to buff them out so that there was no shininess and then you were good to go. I applied everything just as the directions said but I realized a huge key to doing this myself was realizing you have to go light on the powder and let it completely dry. I noticed at the end I had to do a lot of filing which I probably could have avoided knowing my tip before hand.

Overall, I think this could be game changing. One of my main issues with going into the nail salon is just how long it takes. I can be sitting there for hours and that’s something that I can’t stand. Doing it at home takes just as long, but I can multitask and get work done. Also, with COVID I think for now this is just something that I would rather do for health reasons. Not to mention, this is way cheaper as well.

Let me know in the comments below if there is anything else that you want me to try out! Be sure to subscribe to the blog so that you never miss a post. Have a great day everyone! See my last post here.

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