Friday, January 4, 2019

How to remove gel manicures without damaging your natural nails!

There is a widespread myth that wearing gel polish wreaks havoc on your natural nails due to the abusive removal process. However, the truth is that technicians who are either insufficiently educated or pressed for time (or lacking passion for their job) rush to quickly remove the gel using unsafe methods. If you take your time, you can easily remove gel polish without causing damage to your nails: I redo my nails every week (I have too many polishes and stamping plates to play with!) and my nails have not suffered any ill effects. I also wrote about how to apply gel polish so your manicures last for weeks, so feel free to check that post out as well if you're interested! I explain there how to prep your nails for gel, including filing to reach the desired length instead of clipping, so I won't explain the nail prep process here. This post should be much shorter, hopefully! :) (Narrator: It was not much shorter.)

I will describe how to remove gel using hand files - using an E-file is another technique that is much faster, but also comes with the potential to severely, and sometimes irreparably, damage your nails. If you are interested in E-files, I highly recommend you do a lot of research first! Elizabeth Morris at The Nail Hub has some really informative videos that explain how to safely use E-files (she mentioned that she'll be making a video explaining different types of bits soon). Furthermore, this information is of course only valid for soak-off gels, which are designed to be removed using acetone. Hard gels must be filed off the nail, so the information in this post does not apply to them.

SUPPLIES

  • Files: I described in my other post that files which are too coarse shouldn't be used to shorten the nails, as they can roughen the free edge too much. However, when removing gel, you won't be filing all the way through to the nail plate, so coarse files are perfectly fine and will get the job done faster than finer-grit files. I use a 100 grit file.

  • 100% Pure Acetone: To remove normal nail polish, you can use either acetone, acetone-containing polish remover, or even acetone-free polish remover. However, acetone is required to break down the bonds and dissolve the gel, so acetone-free polish remover will not work. (This is still handy if you want to experiment with nail art on top of gel, as it will remove normal polish and leave the gel intact!) Polish remover that contains acetone will work, but it will likely take much longer as the concentration of acetone may be very low. I use this pure acetone, which I find at my local grocery store.

  • Lint-free cloths: As I mentioned in my other post, I just cut up paper towels - readily available and inexpensive! You can also use cotton balls torn into small bits, but I found that I needed much more acetone than when using a thin cloth. I cut them into long rectangles and then fold them in half; if the paper towel is thicker on top of your nail, it can hold more acetone.

  • Aluminum foil, cut into small squares: Companies do sell specific foils for polish remover; some even include small squares of fabric to hold the acetone, but they're quite expensive. I've also tried using finger cots, but heat is an important component to break the bonds in the gel, and the thin cots didn't trap enough heat. I'll explain more about the process later!

  • A cuticle pusher or orange wood stick: Either will work! I have used both; of course the cuticle pusher is faster, but it also brings the potential to damage your nail plates, so you will need to have more patience when using one.

PROCEDURE

1) As I mentioned in my other post, curing gels is a polymerization - actually a chemical process that hardens the gel. Simply applying acetone will not cause the gel to break down, as it is unable to penetrate the shiny surface. The shiny surface must be disrupted using a nail file. Technically, all you must do is file the surface so that it is textured and the acetone can penetrate inside the gel. However, I prefer to remove as much of the gel as possible with the file - the thinner the gel, the less material there is for the acetone to penetrate, and the faster the gel will loosen from your nail. When I do my manicures, I apply base coat, several coats of color, stamping polish, then 1-2 coats of top coat, so I use the stamping polish as my guide - when it has all been removed with the file, then I know I have fully removed the top coat. I will then file a little more, but you must exercise extreme caution so that you do not file the surface of the nail plate. Keeping in mind that the first layer is a clear base coat, I file until I JUST start to see clear peeking through here and there - I do not attempt to remove all the color, because I want to avoid filing my nail. Until you have some experience using a file, it is safest to not attempt to remove all the color.

2) Saturate a lint-free cloth in acetone. Don't be stingy - if the cloth dries out (and acetone is very volatile so it evaporates easily), then the removal process will stop. Place the cloth in the center of the aluminum foil. Place your nail on top of the cloth, such that the cloth extends past your finger both on the sides and past the free edge of the nail. Fold the top of the foil over your fingertip, so that the cloth is in contact with the free edge. This is important because if you wrapped your tips (as you should have!) then you'll need the acetone to also remove the polish there. Then wrap each side around your finger as if it was a Chipotle burrito. Repeat with all fingers on your first hand (I do my hands one at a time; it's pretty tricky to do much of anything with burrito wraps on all your fingers).

The aluminum foil is important - heat is necessary to break down the gel, and your fingers provide enough, but only if you trap it against the nail. As I mentioned previously, I tried finger cots, but they were totally insufficient at trapping the heat - the polish didn't loosen barely at all after a lengthy amount of time in contact with the acetone. Companies also make plastic clips that cover your fingers - I haven't tried them, and it seems like they wouldn't trap enough heat, but I seen people mention that they use and enjoy them. Whatever floats your boat!

3) Wait about 10 minutes. Carefully slide the foil wrap off the first finger you wrapped (without unwrapping it; slide it off as a tube) and check the progression. The first go-round the gel often isn't completely falling off my fingers; I may be a little impatient, and others might wait until it does. But I don't have time for that, I have nails to paint! So I help it along a little with either the cuticle pusher or orange wood stick.

CAUTION: it is very important that you are very careful during this stage, especially if you use a cuticle pusher. First, if the gel is not ready to come off and you manually scrape it off, THIS is what causes damage to your nails and what perpetuated the myth in the first place. One of the major advantages of gel is the extremely strong adhesion it forms with your nail, especially if you prep your nails properly. If you peel the gel off, it will remove the top layer of nail with it. You will know if you have done this because your nails will look a bit more opaque/cloudy/flaky etc. Your nails should look just like they did before you painted them! (Assuming they weren't already damaged, of course.) Second, it is important to hold the cuticle pusher as parallel to your nail surface as possible (the shovel part should hug your nail). The edge of a cuticle pusher is often quite sharp, and if you incline the cuticle pusher, you may dig into your nail plate and gouge it! It is not difficult to do at all (you will do it yourself at some point, if only to a slight degree), so be very careful!

For the first round, I will use the cuticle pusher to GENTLY remove the TOP LAYER of gel. I DO NOT scrape the gel off my nail - I simply scrape off a thin sheet. (Sorry for all the capital letters, but I don't want anyone damaging their nails on my account!) The acetone hasn't completely penetrated through the gel, as evidenced by the fact that it is still bonded to the nail. But it has soaked through partially, so the surface will be softened and easier to scrape off. You may notice (if you didn't file as aggressively at the beginning) that you are scraping off only clear top coat. This is fine! It's better to play it safe and not damage your nails. Carefully insert your finger back into the foil wrap - make sure to take a peek inside first so that the cloth is on your nail and not your finger pad. Give it a squeeze to ensure good contact is made. Sometimes I'll even squeeze it in my palm for a little bit to help warm it and accelerate the process. Repeat with all 5 fingers, in the order the wraps were applied.

4) Depending on the state of your gel after the first round, you may want to wait another few minutes to give the acetone time to work its magic. You can take a peek at the first nail again to check on its progress - the polish should be very obviously flaking off your nail. You do NOT want to use the cuticle pusher or orange wood stick to forcefully remove the gel from your nail. It should fall off on its own! However, you can use the implement of your choice to gently remove the flakes which are no longer adhered, but still sitting on your nail. Any areas which are still well-adhered and appear thick can be GENTLY scraped using the procedure in the previous section. Reapply the wraps, and repeat this step as many times as necessary until the polish is removed. If you have longer nails, the exposed tips may require a bit of extra attention since they are not warmed by your fingers. I find that holding the wrapped nail in my palm to warm it helps. Once the first hand is complete, repeat steps 3 and 4 on your other hand. If this is your dominant hand, you'll need to be extra careful with the cuticle pusher / orange wood stick - I find can be more difficult to avoid damage when using my non-dominant hand, so try to pay close attention to what you're doing!

5) Once the gel is completely removed from your nails, saturate a lint-free cloth and give your nails a good wipe-down. There may still be tiny bits of gel lingering to your nails, and likely some removed debris still attached. Your nails should be nice and smooth when you're done. Optionally, you can then apply cuticle oil to your nails and the skin surrounding them - acetone can be quite drying so it's a good idea to rehydrate the skin that was in contact with it.

Now you can file the nails to your desired length, which I describe briefly in my other post. If you want to reapply polish, you can follow the subsequent steps therein, or leave them bare if you prefer! I haven't had naked nails in nearly a year - they help protect them from water and other damaging agents, and since gel is so strong, it's allowed my nails to grow longer than they ever were before. Another misconception is that nails need to "breathe" or otherwise need a break from polish. This is not true! Nails do not need oxygen and there is nothing wrong with keeping your nails painted. I've heard of women wearing acrylics nonstop for 30 years! The important thing is that you are careful when you remove the gel polish so that the nail plate is not damaged.

I hope someone finds this write-up helpful! Feel free to ask for clarification if anything is unclear :)



Submitted January 05, 2019 at 04:17AM by kinezumi89 http://bit.ly/2TwRDfF

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