I've been wanting to start a new blog for a while so got myself going and here I am.  All brand new.

First topic I'm wanting to talk about is the new Gel nail craze.  Last month I took my granddaughter, Olivia, to get some acrylic nails.  Now don't know if you guys are aware of this little tidbit, but once upon a time I was a licenced nail tech and even owned my own nail salon for a while.   Ok so while I was there waiting for her to get her nails on I decided to get a manicure.  The nail tech asked if I'd like gel nail polish.  Not keeping up on all the new products in nail fashion I decided to give it a try.
Well I just loved it!!  It lasted for over 2 weeks without a chip or crack and still looked so shiney.
Did I say that I loved it???  Yeah well that was until I had to remove the polish.  It took for ever and ever and then I still had to scrape and dig off the remaining crap.  Ok.  well I loved the look so much that I went out and purchased a starter kit from somewhere.  I bought the kit called Sensationail.  It had the led light which I like because the UV lights are not good for your skin, they can cause skin cancer and the led light doesn't.
There are certain steps you have to do to attain a good result.  So buff nails first and clean with lint free cloth and alcohol.  Then apply the base stuff, that makes the polish stick on your nails.  Then one coat of gel nail base coat, and 30 seconds under the led light, next thin coat of color polish, 60 seconds under light, second coat of color polish, 60 more seconds under light, last coat of base and top coat polish and 30 more seconds of lite.  Then another cleaning with lint free cloth with alcohol.
And you are done!!  It took me about 30 minutes to do it all.  And the job was ok.  Oh I forgot that you have to brush the ends of nails to cap them off at each polish step.
When I got to removal time it was the same as before.  Soak for days in the strong polish remover and then scrap and buff off the polish.  I hated that soooo much.  ANd my nails,  poor things looked like they had been under the acrylic nails for months.  They are very thin and weak from all the remover and scraping and digging to remove the old polish.  My natural nails were pretty strong and a nice length before all this and now they are down to the quick.  I am so disappointed.

This photo is of my natural nails with the first gel nails I got from the nail salon.

This photo is when I applied the second set of gel nails on my own. 

And this photo I just took 30 seconds ago.  If you look real close you can still see some remaining red polish that I couldn't get off.  My nails are thrashed now.  Am going to have to really pamper them with argon oil 2 or 3 times a day and no more remover for a while.

The polish I have on them in the last photo is called Fuse.  It's sort of a gel nail polish where as it is only suppose to last a week without chipping and all that.  And it doesn't use the primer that the other gel nail from Sensationail does as does acrylic nails too.  I will report on what I think about this one next week.
If you'd like to check out the Sensationail nail site just go to http://www.sensationail.com .  The Fuse gel nail is on that site as well.  So go check it out for yourself and then post a comment here and let me know how it goes for you.