Saturday, December 31, 2016

New Years Manicure ringing in 2017

Happy New Years Eve ,  I wish everyone a wonderful 2017 full of love and happiness.  I don't know what happened our what I might have done wrong , but shortly after I did my Christmas gel set they began to break.   After the repair of my thumb nail on my right hand , my thumb on my left hand broke off .   I putting up my pea coat and it feel on my thumb taking off the tip of my left nail.  I did not have time to repair it properly so I clued it back on for a while .   It irritated me that my nails were breaking , I was also begining to notice every imperfection .   I noticed that where I had applied my tips gaps were beginning to show .   Then I started to pick at them and ended up taking them off.  I think I may have applied the extension tips incorrectly.   My natural nails are extremely short and there is not a nail tip for an extension to adhere to .   My other thought was I may have not built up the nail enough on the apex.   

While I was out to dinner with my husband he notice that I took off all of my nails and said I was not allowed to do gel nails for a while .   He gave me a six month window,  He said I could paint them , but not do the gel.   My nails are in bad shape right now , brittle and snagging on everything.  In conducting my research of gel nails on Utube .   I am talking about countless hours of me watching tons of videos for endless hours .   I came across some tutorials where people have put gel on their natural nails to help grow them out.   I decided to give it a try and keep my nails short , meaning not adding any type of extension.   I think I tried this before , however it was prior to my apple cider vinegar treatment .  

Now that I have my natural nails somewhat back and have gotten rid of that pesky fungus (Yay) I want to try to keep my nails as strong and healthy as possible , however I do like having them done once in a while and I plan on figuring out the proper way to do extensions.  However for the next six months as a dare from my husband I can't do them.  Life with short nails to start 2017 it is.

For this manicure I started out by doing a try manicure , pushed back cuticle and file the shine from my natural nails.   I did something different this time , which I have notice in the utube videos that I watched . I cleaned my nails after filing with a wipe with nail polish remover.  Nail polish remover dehydrates the nail plate , which allows products like gel and acrylic adhere better.   I added the IBD bonder to my nails and cured for the required time .   I then applied a thin layer of IBD builder gel in pink to my natural nail making sure that gel did not get on my skin.   I cured my nails for the required time of one minute.   After this cure I applied a thicker layer of gel to my natural nail ,  to get a good amount of gel with this product you must dip your brush in the gel pot and lift up creating a string of gel .  I rotate my brush which helps create a little bit of a ball.   I unload the ball in the middle of my nail and with a circular motion I disperse the gel on my natural nail and use the string technique to build out a decent looking nail . Once I am satisfied with the shape of my nail I cure my nail for the required 3 minutes .  

I clean the sticky layer of gel off my nail with an alcohol wipe ( paper towel with alcohol on it) .  At this point I take the 100 side of my nail file and lightly file over the nails to get rid of any ridges.   I used the 180 side of my file and shape out my nail following the natural shape.  I think my natural shape might be round , because that it the shape that my nails followed .   after filing I clean my nails with my alcohol wipe and apply IBD intense seal and cure for the required time of 3 minutes.   I then lightly buff my nails with a white block and again clean my nails with an alcohol wipe.   I could leave nails clear as they look like a pair of healthy natural nails .  However I love to paint my nails and add some type of fun design .

Because it is New Years Eve I decided to so something a little festive.  I have this awesome glittery silver color from Sally Hansen called Guilty Party .  Which I think is perfect to ring in the new year with .   I than chose a festive full cover nail stamp in black pearl from my Konad nail stamp collection.   

It usually takes two weeks for gel nails to grow out needing fills.  We will see how these nails hold up , also I am excited to see if my theory of having gel on the bottom of regular nail polish will allow the color to last longer .   For some reason I having issues with gel color and think that clear gel or natural gel colors as a base are better.   If I want to change the color of my nails tomorrow I can without having to file the color off of my nail.   Time for me to clean up the house now and take down all of my Christmas decorations.  Happy New Years !!!


Monday, December 26, 2016

Update on Christmas gel nails .

Hope everyone had a great Christmas , I had a great time spending time with my family and getting lots of great presents . However during the festivities I broke two of my nails , the first nail broke on Saturday right before I was going to leave for my sisters Christmas Eve Party.   My nailed cracked in the middle but did not come off completely.   I was able to clue my nail , however I could still see the crack.   By not having to go to the salon to get my nail fixed , I was able to fix my nail at home.   I took out my nail kit and applied gel over my nail , however due to where the break was I determined that I must have not created a good C curve .   I built up the C curve  using the drag method, I dipped the brush into the gel and laid the string of gel over the nails and built up the nail.   I cured it for the required three minutes .  The nail came out very smooth , so I buffed the nail , cleaned it and painted it .  Fixed my nail with in five minutes , you can not tell that it was ever broken.


While cleaning up after the aftermath of Christmas dinner I broke my thumb nail .  Again I was able to fix my nail at home in less than ten minutes .  I repeated the gel application again, however due to how the nail broke I had to redo the complete nail .  Having everything at home and on hand made repairing the nails so easy and of course because I didn't have to go the salon and pay to repair my nail I saved money  and time.   


My nails are complete again and so far I have not had any problems , however its only been a day .  I determined that the problem could have been that I did not build up the nail correctly and create the  C curve I have looked at all nails and I see that they now appear to have pretty good C curves , so we will see how the hold up further.  


Friday, December 23, 2016

Christmas Nails 2016

Merry Christmas,  What better way to relax after having surgery than to do your nails.  I tried to sculpt my nails but my nails are too short and it was a complete fail.  For my Christmas Nails I decided to add tips to give a little length and add a little structure.  

Since I just had surgery and didn't wanted to work to hard , I used my electric drill with a coarse file . I started with pushing my cuticles back and lightly filed my nails with my electric file.   I then cleaned my nails with paper towel with alcohol on it.  I sized the nail tips and clued them to my nails.  I cut my nails down to a preferred length ( I like to keep them short as I can't do anything with them when they are long).  I filed the nails with my electric file to blend the tips to my natural nail bed.  Then I took a regular nail file with 180 /100 grit side and shaped my nails into a nice square shape and cleaned them with an alcohol wipe. 

Next I did the gel application.  I used IBD builder gel in pink.  To begin the gel application process I applied IBD Bonder to my nails and cured for one minute under a UV Lamp.   Then I applied a thin layer of IBD builder gel and cured for one minute under the UV Lamp.   I dipped my gel brush in the builder gel and picked up a nice amount of gel .  I applied a thicker amount of gel to the middle of my nail bed and worked the gel from my cuticle to the free edge.  I kept the gel thin close to my cuticle and thicker towards the free edge.   Once you have a nice C curve and are satisfied with your nail you can cure for three minutes.   After curing for three minutes I wiped off the dispersion layer (stictky layer) with an alcohol wipe.  I took my nail file and filed the sides and free edge of my nail keeping the sides slightly rounded.   I than took my electric drill and used a lighter drill to smooth out the nail.  I then took a white buffer and buffed my nails , then applied IBD Intense seal to the nails and cured for three minutes.   After curing for three minutes I took my nails out of the UV Lamp , there was no need to wipe off a dispersion layer as IBD intense seal is a UV top coat. 

After the gel application process I add cuticle oil to all of my nails and massage the oil into my cuticle .   I wipe my nails with a clean paper towel and chose my nail color.   Because it is Christmas I decided to use a nice classy red color and a festive green.  I love Sally Hansen nail color and decided to use Bordeaux Glow and Combusteable for my colors .  I used Combusteable on my accent finer and used Bordeaux Glow on the other four nails.  I then decided to add a fun full cover nail stamp to the accent finger using Konad nail art stamps with silver stamping polish .  I finished the nails with Sally Hansen top coat .  


I don't really like to use gel nail polish as you have to file your nails to remove it or soak your nail in nail polish remover damaging your nail bed.   Using regular nail polish allows you change your color as often as you like , and having the gel overlay on the bottom of the polish allows the color to last longer with less chipping from my experience.   I have been doing my nails for years now and never had my nail color chip.    Lets see how long these last , I am hoping that I finally learned how to do them correctly.   I will be back to do a new years design if I have time next week.  Merry Christmas !!!


Sunday, May 8, 2016

 
 
Happy Mother's Day Everyone ! I did this manicure last night , I am trying to grow out my nails , but it doesn't seem to be working .  I notice when I do my nails than my natural nails grow.   When I don't have them done they grow out , but the are split and chip and end up breaking .  For this manicure , I put tips and cut them really short , I used IBD builder gel , and Sally Hansen polish in some gold color , I can't remember the name of the color .   I decided to use my Konad stamps , I chose some cool little flowers that kind of look like stars ! Because all Mom's are Stars !

Friday, April 1, 2016


Decided to do something different and new   .  I went with an oval shape .  I used nail tips to add length and instead of using  regular IBD builder gel , I used IBD Intense seal.  We'll see how they hold up , so far so good. 

The intense seal was a lot easier to use instead of the regular builder gel and it was less messy.  also I did not have to file my nails as much .  I add the tips filed them until they were even with my nails , then dusted them off and polished on the intense seal . I dried my nails under the UV light for three minutes .  They came out completely dry , then I buffed them with a white block , applied cuticle oil and polished them .   It was so easy .  

They are not as think as normal gel nails , they have more of a natural look if that is what you are looking to do.   They feel pretty strong and secure.  If this works I may never do regular builder gel again.   My whole goal is to grow my nails and keep them protected .   I am hoping that the intense seal doesn't crack or anything , we shall see.   I always use the Intense seal over my regular gel manicures and have never had a problem.   I had to add a flower for a spring design from my Konad nail stamp collection.