Why Gel Nails Suck!

Why Gel Nails Suck!

Okay, I admit it, I got a little hooked on having gel nails on over the holiday season.

Why?… you may ask… well just purely because of the convenience.  I literally didn’t have to paint my nails for the entire month of December.

Not one broken nail.  Not one chipped nail.  Not even one “bad nail day”!

So, I thought I was in heaven… that was until I had to take them off.

Uggh!  Disaster!  Now I’m gonna tell you why gel nails suck for me!

What Are Gel Nails?

For those of you that may be unfamiliar with “gel nails” what they do is they apply a special gel nail polish and then they bake your nails under an LED light or “curing” light and the nail polish sets super fast and stays put and shiny for about two weeks, sometimes longer.

Now of course, I am sitting there with my nails baking and thinking to myself “this cannot be good for your nails.”  I mean, nails are living breathing things, and I am basically suffocating the crap out of them with cured shellac that will be going nowhere until it’s dremeled off my fingers!

Taking Off Gel Nails Ruins Your Natural Nails!

So when it came to take off the gels, I went to the nail salon, and told them I just wanted them “soaked” off.  Not scraped off with an orange wood stick.  And I certainly did not want to use the “dremel” on my nails.

But they convinced me that the ONLY way to get these suckers off my nails was to do the two things I instinctively knew were bad…using the orange wood stick AND the dreaded dremel!

The issue here is that it would take over an hour sitting with acetone on your nails for the gels to come off without some sort of force.

So I let them do it.  All along they were assuring me… “this won’t hurt your nails… it’s fine… this is how we do it… blah blah blah blah blah!”

But I could feel it.  I knew it.  I knew they were basically removing a layer of my natural nail.  And the proof is in the picture and the pain.

My nails literally hurt for a good two days after the gels came off.

What they basically did is to remove an entire layer of my natural nail.

They are so thin, they are all broken, they are all splitting, and it’s going to take six months of babying them to get them back to normal!

What You Can Do If Your Nails Were Ruined By Gels

So here is what you can do to help nurture your nails back to health.  You have to apply a good nail oil to them at least FIVE TIMES A DAY.  Rub the oil into the nail and the nail bed.

Oils You can use for nail bed massage:

1.  Coconut Oil
2. 100% Argan Oil
3. Vitamin E oil
4. Avocado Oil

What Else Can You Do to Help Rehab Your Nails

Aside from massaging oil into your nails five times a day, you need to stay hydrated and take care of the cuticles.  DO NOT CUT your cuticles.  Push them back gently to keep them from becoming unruly.

Use gloves when you wash the dishes.

You can put some extra heavy duty oil or cream on your hands at night and then put on a pair of cotton gloves to really let this soak in overnight.

If you want to paint your nails during the “healing” period, go to the health food store, or your natural store and get some toluene and formaldehyde free polish.  When it’s time to take off the polish, DO NOT PEEL it off.  Get a good quality, non-acetone nail polish remover to keep your nails from drying out!

Good luck, and stay away from gels if you don’t want to ruin your nails for months on end!  It’s not worth it!
To Your Health!