Hello readers,
Today I'm trying out my first ever gel polish. Bio Seaweed Gel sent me a couple polishes from their Unity All-In-One line to test out. The nice thing about these gels is that they cure in bright direct sunlight, so you don't need a UV lamp to use them. Also, you don't need to roughen up your natural nails before hand, just prep with rubbing alcohol. Bonus: They are 5-free!
Whitehorse is a bright aqua creme. To prep my nails I wiped them with rubbing alcohol to remove any oils. The formula on this gel is thicker than a regular nail polish, but since this doesn't dry/cure until you go into bright sunlight, the thicker formula still self-levels well. Thin coats definitely work best. I used three thin coats of colour and cured them in the sun for about five minutes after each coat. I did notice a tiny bit of shrinkage at the free edge after the first coat so on the second and third colour coats I made sure to wrap my nail tips. Finally I sealed everything up with a coat of No-Wipe Top gel polish, a clear top coat. The top coat did take longer to cure than the colour coats so make sure to stay out in the sun a bit longer. Photos show three coats of Whitehorse with one coat of No-Wipe Top in daylight spectrum lighting.
All in all I think this turned out really well for a first attempt at gel. Here are a few things I learned along the way that will hopefully make your first attempt a little easier.
- Make sure you use thin coats. They self-level better and cure faster.
- Make sure to clean up your cuticles before curing. I used an angle brush dipped in pure acetone to clean up any polish that got on my skin and cuticles.
- Don't go near magnets with uncured polish on your fingers. I discovered this the hard way when attempting to read my kindle while waiting for the polish to cure. The magnetic clasp on the case gave my polish a wavy texture.
- Take some extra time to let the No-Wipe top coat cure in sunlight. Better safe than sorry when it's the very last step.
If Bio Seaweed Gel polish is something you'd like to try, then be sure to use the coupon code THELAZYLAQUERISTA to get $10 off your purchase at shop.bioseaweedgel.com until December 30, 2015. Be sure to look up swatches of colours before hand as I've found the colours on the bottles don't always reflect the colour in real life perfectly. You can also find Bio Seaweed Gel on:
Happy polishing,
Michelle
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