IBD Nails Day 1, 2, & 3

Day 3 IBD Gel Nails Pic

My nails looked great after I finished them I was very pleased. Unfortunately I don't have a picture of my nails first done but I do have pics for Day 3.

The process was EXTREMELY simple. I'm actually quite surprised how simple it was to do my nails with the right tools.

First thing was buffing the tops of my nails with a buffer block (which gets rid of shine and dehydrates the nail) and then cleaning my nails with rubbing alcohol.

I made the mistake of first using drugstore nail glue (KISS) for my nail tips. Before you do any of this make sure you have good glue! I lost a tip the second day and that made the gel crack and created air spaces.

Anyways, after applying all of the nail tips to my nails I cut them using a nail cutter specifically for tips. Then you file down the corners a little bit until your nails are shaped the way you want them to be.

Then wipe I wiped my nails off again with rubbing alcohol to clean away the dust and get rid of any oil that might have gotten on my nails in the process.

I applied a thin coat of IBD bonder/primer all over each nail and cured in an LED lamp for 1 min.

I should mention, although it says to use a UV lamp in the instructions I was curious to try out my Sensationail LED Lamp because my UV lamp had not arrived yet. As far as I can tell it works perfectly.

I will try using the LED and the UV (one on each hand) next time and see if it makes a difference with how long the gel lasts.

From what I've read, LED lights are stronger and therefore faster at curing. I did a lot of research on UV vs LED and I really couldn't find a lot on the topic so I will experiment with both and maybe save some of you the hassle of having two lights for different products.

Anyway after curing the bonder/primer, I applied a thin layer of clear gel and cured that for 1 min. I then applied another coat of gel and cured that for 3 mins.

The last part of this was applying the Intense Seal to add shine and smooth out the top. I cured that for 2 mins.

That whole process is surprisingly quick I was very impressed. Especially since I'm use to having to take 4 hrs out of my day to get the perfect salon nails at home from lightless UV kits from the drugstore (that look good for about 3 days)...never again!!

Day 2

Lost 2 tips because the glue didn't hold well....so I went to Sally's and bought better glue.

Day 3

Tips were fine, noticed some lifting in the corners which I think is due to my own fault of getting a bit of the gel on my skin. Very minor though. Also noticed some cracks in either the top coat or gel itself...other people wouldn't notice it because they are hair pin cracks but I could see them and it bugs me....

See the lifting in the corner??

Day 4

Lost a tip that had the old glue on it... I did put the new glue underneath all of my other nails but that can only do so much....so now I need to redo that nail with the new glue.

That's as far as my journey has gone so far....

I really want to try the 'builder' gel which I've already ordered. The soak-off clear gel has a thinner consistency than the builder gel from what I've seen on tutorials.

If you have naturally uneven nail surfaces, such as I do, with little dips and whatnot, I would recommend trying the builder gel. It's suppose to be self-leveling and be a little thicker.

Once I get that in I will post the results.

Hope this was helpful and if you have any questions just post them up!

~Gwen S~

IBD Gel Soak-Off Nails...Follow Along

Through the next week or weeks I will post everyday on how my IBD nails are doing. After watching a tutorial on Youtube that used IBD soak-off gel I decided to give this a go. I discovered you can purchase salon brand nail products from Sally's Beauty Supply or other beauty supply stores or one of my favorite places to purchase things - Ebay.

After doing some research on the IBD nail products, I went on Ebay and bought IBD soak-off clear gel, IBD gel remover, IBD bonder/primer, IBD intense seal, and and IBD nail brush. This all costed me around $40...so not too bad. And all of this will last awhile so in the end its actually very cheap.

I will talk more about this tomorrow, along with LED vs UV light which is another experiment I'm throwing into the mix.

I'll start posting pictures so you can see my process as well. Currently I'm on Day 2 of IBD nails and so far so good... :)

Talk to you all tomorrow!

~Gwen S~

DIY Acrylic Nails (lightless)

After my experience with DIY gel nail kits (lightless) I decided to try and tackle DIY Acrylic nail kits (also lightless).

For those of you who don't know the difference between gel nails and acrylic nails (because it took me a long time to learn the difference!) is that acrylic is a porous material used on nails, it's extremely tough and long-lasting and gel is literally a gel put on the nail and hardened (either cured under an LED or UV or used with an activator to harden). Gel is not porous. They both have pros and cons.

I have found acrylic to be extremely hard to work with, and its a much longer process when doing it at home.

Anyway, after trying the gel nails (in my previous post) I decided to try the DIY KISS acrylic nails, also lightless. You can pick this kit up at Walmart or Shoppers Drugmart for about $12-$16 CDN.

My first few experiences were terrible with this. It's messy, and expect it to take a very long time if you want to do it right.

The kit comes with tips, orange stick, nail file, glue, acrylic powder, acrylic liquid and a brush.

First part is the same as any kit, you cut your real nails, file the tops a little bit (so nail sticks better) and you find the right nail size and glue tips to your nails. 

Like I mentioned in my last post, I definitely didn't know about all the different helpful nail tools there are (like electric nail drills, nail tip cutters, etc). So I cut the nails with regular nail cutters and once again took an hour or so to cut and file each nail into the desired shape.

Then you clean your nails off and pour the acrylic liquid into a dappen dish (or glass bowl) and you dip the brush into the liquid so it's wet, then drag the brush tip along the powder to form a ball at the end of the brush. 

You then pad the ball onto your nail to form a flat surface. This is all in the instructions. It's also extremely hard to do...if you've never shaped nails with acrylic before.

So after I did that to all of my nails I was left with very uneven surfaces of acrylic on my nails. As I  mentioned earlier this acrylic didn't need a lamp so it dried on it's own.

After all of my nails had dried I had to file the surfaces down so I didn't have any uneven ridges...this also took another hour to get it perfect. Finally after that's done you apply a topcoat to give it a smooth and shiny top.

This whole process takes a very long time if you do it the way I did...and in the end it's not worth it.

Acrylic is extremely durable, I had no problem with lifting or tips falling off or the acrylic breaking. But for some reason the tips yellowed after some time... or at least I thought it was the tips. It was actually all the acrylic. And this is very common with acrylic, especially with the at home kits.

So I wouldn't recommend a DIY lightless Acrylic kit. It also takes an EXTREMELY long time to soak them off. I used to soak my fingers in acrylic for 15-20mins (which is very hard on your skin) and then I discovered an easier way to do it...which I'll discuss in my next post :)