Gel manicure

Before reading any further, enter my giveaway!!

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I got a gel manicure last week, so I thought I'd give a little review of it. It won't be the full blown review until more time has passed because I'd like to see how it holds up before I make a final decision on it, but here are my thoughts so far.

If you follow me on Twitter, you may have seen that I took my acrylics off over a week ago. I needed a fill and wasn't planning on getting one right away, and I was really aching to get a gel manicure anyway. So I went for it.

Originally I just planned on getting a Shellac manicure, but after talking to my nail chick (the ever-so-lovely Amanda at Athena) we decided that while she also prefers Shellac, that Axxium would be better for my newly-naked nails. She said that it's thicker, and with my nails being sooooo thin after having acrylics on for most of the last 5 years, I needed that. I'll try out the Shellac at some point, but I'm liking the Axxium so far.

I chose the color Indi-a Mood for Love which is very pink. They had a good color selection - more than Shellac. But a lot of the colors looked very similar on the box. For example, the color I chose was so similar to Pink Margaritas that I honestly couldn't even tell what the difference was. I'm not sure if there would be a noticeable difference when actually applied to the nail, but on the box there was none at all. Lame.

The manicure process was simple. They start you off the way they would any ol' manicure. Soak, push back cuticles, cut, file, etc etc. Then they used an Axxium primer, which if I remember correctly did not have to cure, but I could be wrong. Then I got one coat of the color, which comes in a little jar and they use a separate brush for. While my first hand cured, she applied the gel to the other, and then repeated that until both hands had two coats. They had to cure in the UV lamp for a bit, and then when the light went off I took them out and touched one. I totally expected it to be dry because I knew that's how gel manicures worked - they cured under the lamp and that was it - you didn't need to be careful or anything. But it left a fingerprint! I had a little mini-panic and just waited for Amanda (who was helping another customer). She came over and started spraying my hands with something while I waited for her to see what I had done. She started to rub my nails with a paper towel after spraying that stuff and I thought she was going to be in for a surprise when she looked at them and saw she messed them up - clearly they weren't done curing yet. But they were fine! I asked what the spray was and she said it was alcohol to remove the residue on my nails. Huh? She had me touch one of my nails. Oohhh. So that's what made my nail sticky, like it wasn't done yet? I had freaked over nothing. Maybe Shellac is different in that regard, or people just left that factoid out of their reviews. She wiped them all down and finished the manicure (cuticle oil, lotion, etc) and I was good to go. Yay!

It's been a few days now, and so far the manicure is holding up really well. Typically polish for me doesn't last more than 2 days, but we're at like... 3 or 4 now with zero chips. And for some reason I haven't had the desire to try to peel them or bite like I usually do with polish (but not with acrylics, which is why I had them). They look good and I've gotten compliments. With the gel being so thick, you can't tell at all the damage done to the surface of my nails (thanks to the acrylics and removing them), which you totally could with normal nail polish. The manicure should last about 2 weeks, so I'll update once it's been one week and then again at two weeks. Longer if they seem to last longer. I hope they do!

So anyway, that's been my experience so far. Keep an eye out for my updates!