How to make a gel polish manicure at home?

It is common for every woman to strive for perfection. At the same time, she pays a lot of attention to her nails, because the well-groomed hands can tell a lot about her mistress. Along with the fact that today there are many tools for high-quality and durable manicure, I want to keep up with the times and use the best novelties and materials. It is worth dwelling in detail on how to make a step-by-step gel polish manicure at home, indicate what is needed for this and how to avoid common mistakes for beginners.

Gel polish belongs to the new generation of nail products. This is a hybrid coating, characterized by both the qualities of a gel and a varnish. The material is characterized by a pleasant texture to work with, it spreads evenly over the prepared nail plate.

The fundamental difference between gel polish and conventional materials, which women usually use at home, is the need for drying in a special drying device (UV or LED lamp). Without a lamp, the varnish does not dry at all, even if the application layer is very thin. Of course, this makes the job easier, since you can take your time with the application, fearing the formation of streaks and bald spots. At the same time, to perform a manicure, you will have to buy a lamp, which can be complicated by a large number of proposals, since it is difficult for an uneducated woman to choose an option with the required power.

Otherwise, gel polish is a unique material. It has the widest range of color shades and a lot of varieties that differ in the effect of texture. These are glossy, jelly, yoghurt, magnetic, luminous varieties. Matte coatings with a textile effect are very popular today, as well as temperature options that darken in the cold and become light in warmth. They create a unique gradient effect over long lengths.

A distinctive feature of gel varnish coatings is their compatibility with any decor, without exception. This nuance is a decisive factor in the choice of hybrid coatings. However, the execution technique has one significant drawback: it is lengthy and can take up to three hours in time. But if you consider that the varnish will hold for at least 2-3 weeks, this is quite justified. This will save time for daily renewal of manicure with ordinary varnish, which very quickly loses its freshness.

Another feature is the very technique of performing a manicure. Unlike the usual technique, here you will have to apply layer by layer, drying each of them in a drying lamp for the required amount of time. It will not be possible to shorten the time or cheat, since all the flaws will be reflected in the quick detachment of the materials used. It is necessary to understand that these varnishes require high-quality and accurate work. You will have to correct the errors before drying, then it will not work.

Professional inventory is different from what women use at home. Of course, if you have finances, you can get an apparatus, but for beginners, the usual set of familiar tools is quite enough. Since the entire technique will consist of hygienic and decorative manicure, it is worth clearly distinguishing between two sets of tools that may be needed in the work. To prepare your nails for working with gel polish at home, you need to take care of the availability of tools such as:

• scissors and nail scissors;
• orange stick;
• cuticle removers;
• soaking trays;
• pusher;
• files and soft grinder;
• lint-free napkins;
• sawdust brushes;
• special degreasing liquid.

To perform decorative manicure, depending on the variety of its technique, you may need the following tools:

• thin brushes with bristles of different lengths;
• drying lamp for 24/48 W;
• rubber hoof;
• orange stick;
• lint-free napkins.

In addition, the work may need a pusher to push back the cuticle just before the varnish is applied. An approximate list of materials will depend on what kind of design is planned. A typical standard list consists of the following materials:

• basic coverage;
• finish (top);
• pigmented (colored) gel varnishes;
• primer;
• decor elements.

In order not to get confused in the steps of the master class, it is worth separating the main stages of its implementation and dwelling on each in detail.

A hygienic manicure includes several steps.

• In the salon, before starting work, the client's hands must be treated with an antiseptic. At home, you can wash them with soap and water without steaming and without delaying hand washing. Align the length, use a file to give the desired shape to the edge of each nail plate. This should be done in one direction to avoid detachment of the gel polish. You need to use good, not ground files in your work.
• Take a cuticle remover and apply it to the skin around the nail, excluding the regrowth area. This transparent substance prepares the skin for further painless removal.It will reduce the risk of injury and reduce stress in the dermis, thereby eliminating irritation.
• After applying the product, the fingers are placed in the bath for 4–5 minutes. The temperature of the water in the container should be +4 degrees. During the stay of the fingers in it, it will decrease slightly. Do not use cold water, it is bad for bones. After the allotted time, the fingers are taken out of the water and wiped with delicate movements.

• They start cleaning the cuticles and pterygium. They take a pusher and use a spatula to first push it aside, and then gently lift the skin at the base and on the sides, reaching the end of the finger. Do not touch the upper part under the nail. Raised skin is easier to cut, which is why it needs to be turned out rather than pushed aside, so it is clearer what exactly will have to be cut.
• Using nail scissors or nippers (tweezers), cut off excess skin. In this case, movements must be made in the direction of the cut (in no case up). If possible, you should try to cut off not in parts, but in a whole strip of leather. This will reduce rejects in work, which is one of the reasons for the flow of gel polish behind the cuticle.
• Then they arm themselves with an orange stick and check the quality of the cleaning by swiping it around the nail in the places of cleaning. If there are flaws, they immediately go up. They are cut with scissors or with a scabbard.

Now they are preparing the very surface of the nail, adhering to a certain algorithm.

• Take a buff (soft grinder) and delicately remove the gloss from the surface of the nail. They drive in one place of the nail with a buff no more than two times, so as not to thin the plate itself. Using a dust brush, the sawdust is removed. Then degrease the surface with a dehydrator, removing residual sawdust with lint-free wipes.
• Now a primer can be applied to the surface, which will increase the adhesion of the nail with all subsequent applied materials. This function is performed by a primer, it is applied in a thin layer and dried in a lamp. The device timer will allow you to keep the time correctly without disrupting the process technology.
• After that, the base could be applied, but usually many women have weakened marigolds. Often they need help, so they have to deal with strengthening. This is a special composition that can be included in the technology and applied in a thin layer to the surface of the prepared nail. It is transparent, has a viscous consistency and fits well on the surface of polished marigolds. The material is also dried in a lamp for the required amount of time.

To apply the base materials correctly, it is worth taking a few steps.

• Take a base material and cover the nail with it. The agent must be applied to the surface with a thin layer so that it does not spread beyond the limits of the nail plate. To do this as gently as possible, you can pull the skin around the cuticle with your fingers and immediately place your nail in the lamp. Do not apply the product to all your fingers at once to save time. While the latter is processed, in the first, the composition may leak behind the cuticle and side ridges.
• According to the rules of technology, when applying each product, you will have to walk along the end of the nail. This must be done carefully, making sure that the layer of the applied product is thin. To prevent the coating from turning out flat, spreading along the sides, it is worth turning the nail down after applying the base, and then quickly turning it back and placing it in the lamp. This will not flatten the arch.

• After the base material has been dried in the lamp, a pigmented varnish is applied. To make the coating look more neat at the base of the nail, create this line with a thin brush. You won't be able to crawl up the bottle with a brush. They take quite a bit of paint on a manicure brush and paint on a beautiful edge of the bottom, and, if necessary, the sides. After that, paint the base of the nail or its entire area.Sometimes the masters do the painting not with the first, but with the second layer of applying pigmented gel polish. Each professional has his own opinion on this, however, working with a brush at the beginning of painting will completely cover any flaws in the work with a second layer.
• After the nail plate is stained with pigment, it is given about half a minute to spread. This will avoid streaking and uneven distribution of the product throughout the plate. After that, the nail is dried in a lamp. The step is repeated to completely cover the original color of the nail.
• After that, the cover is decorated and covered with a top layer. The top is applied in a light layer, covering the entire nail and processing its end. Then carry out drying in a lamp and after about 30 seconds, the residual stickiness is removed. This should be done with nail polish remover. You need to work quickly and delicately.

Decorating nails is carried out mainly before they are sealed with a finishing material. However, in other cases, it is required to apply the decor just over the top. It is worth considering the basic techniques for decorating nails, according to the general step-by-step instructions, which you can do yourself. It should be based on the principle of operation of nail service professionals.

The images are applied at the stage when the pigmented gel polish has already been dried, but the top has not yet been used. The drawing technique can be very diverse (from stamping with various patterns to stencils). Someone uses dots with various ball nozzles to draw, creating interesting ornaments with ordinary round dots of different colors and sizes. In its simplest form, it can be an imitation of a French manicure, in which a bow is formed with dots. In the same way, they first draw the contours of the hole, and then fill it.

More advanced craftsmen use coatings with a flowering effect in their work. You don't need any special skills here: the drawings appear by themselves, creeping out of the usual dots, lines and commas put on the nail. Sometimes it is quite enough to point dots with special paints on an undried transparent base coat with a blooming effect. As soon as the desired result is achieved, the nail is dried in a lamp, and then the desired contours are given to the pattern. So the spots turn into flowers, leaves, dandelions, feathers and more.

You can paint on a pigmented basis using water-based artistic watercolors, gel polish diluted with a top, or acrylic gel paints. If the main background is dark, first create a white underpainting of the desired shape, then fill it with colored pigments, forming halftones and achieving a realistic image. After the drawing is ready, it is dried (in the case of using watercolors, it dries itself), covered with a top with further drying.

As for the theme of the print, it can be very diverse. These are flowers, geometry, space, ethnic motives, and plants. It is fashionable to use seasonal pictures in the design. For example, these are butterflies, dandelions and insects for summer, chamomile prints, dew drops on flowers, colorful leaves and berries for autumn. Winter images can convey the beauty of frosty patterns; ideas for spring can be drawn from floral and Scandinavian designs. One of the most fashionable trends today has become the boho style in manicure design with its inherent brightness and confusion of ornaments. You can draw on the nails with manicure brushes, dots, cling film, stamps, as well as ordinary foil tape or even a toothpick.

Like the drawings, the decor is not performed on everyone, but only on accent nails. You can use kamifubuki (multi-colored confetti), broths, rhinestones, crystals, sliders, stickers with a sticky layer, powder, fimo and rub in for this.In addition, tear-off or transfer foil, as well as yuka flakes, can be an excellent decoration option. Each type of decor will have its own technology and application sequence. For example, in order to transfer water-type stickers (slider design), a base (top, white base or ultrabond) must be applied over the dried pigment, then remove the protection layer from the sticker, lower the cut image into water, separate from the substrate and distribute on a sticky layer of undried substance. After that, you need to cover the layer with the picture first with the base, and then with the top. Each layer must be dried in a lamp.

The procedure for working with powders depends on their type. If it is acrylic sand or powder, it is applied in two ways. In the first case, a base is applied to the nail, it is dipped into a jar of powder and dried. Craftsmen often also polish such powders. Sometimes the powder is applied to a layer of undried base, sprinkling it over the nail. When you need to add volume to any pattern (for example, create a knitted print), create it with a transparent top, sprinkle with powder and dry.

To learn how to work properly with rubbing, you will have to practice using tips. This veil is rubbed into the surface of the nails on the sticky layer of the top. The longer the processing time, the denser the effect will be. Mica flakes are also easy to apply. They will look beautiful if you paint over them, say, with a thin layer of stained glass. Foil is handled in different ways, depending on the type of material itself. Most often, a special glue is used for it, which is applied over the pigment. When dried in air, it changes color from white to transparent. As soon as this effect is, the foil cut in the shape of the nail is applied to the nail, pressed firmly and torn off. The pattern remains on the surface of the plate.

As for rhinestones, they are glued to two types of material: modeling tool or top. It's easier to glue them onto an undried top, which is covered with a layer of pigment. However, in view of the volume and in order to avoid quickly tearing off the sparkling decor, you have to apply the top again, only now without touching the rhinestones, otherwise they will cease to shine. The “broken glass” technique is nothing more than gluing a special manicure film with a different effect on a painted nail. It is cut into pieces, then glued to a base or top layer and sealed with a finish with mandatory drying in a lamp. Often, before cutting the film, the dispersion layer is removed from it. This decor is used only for accents, since it will look too simple on all nails.

If you violate the basics of technology and paint your nails, missing its important points, this will affect the final result. It is worth noting some short common mistakes that beginners make.

• One of them is insufficient lamp power and, as a result, incomplete drying of the applied layers of various materials. In this case, the coating peels off the nails very quickly, and it can slip off immediately with a thick film.
• Sometimes beginners do not consider it necessary to use one of the mandatory components of the layered technology. By removing the base or not using a primer, you can not hope that the coating will differ in durability. The same can be said about such an important point as the removal of residual stickiness. If the dispersion layer is not removed, this also leads to a rapid detachment of the applied coating.
• Often the problem lies in non-compliance with the rules for caring for a finished manicure. In order for the coating to stay on the nails for a long time without the need for correction, you need to follow a number of recommendations that are usually given by professional masters at the end of a manicure session. By neglecting these rules, we reduce the wear of the material and create all conditions for its early peeling. But at the first chips, the wine is often transferred to the poor quality of the hybrid coatings used.
• There are times when newbies start to tackle the coating after curing in a lamp. However, in any attempt to fix any defect, they are faced with the problem of chipping off a piece from the main layer. They do not succeed in flawlessly correcting such a defect, and they often do not want to redo it due to the long time due to drying of each layer. However, the problem remains: painting does not save the situation, because when a piece breaks off, an air pocket is also formed.

To keep the gel polish on the nails for a long time, you should pay attention to the following simple recommendations of nail specialists:

• a manicure is not done when a woman has critical days or at the time of taking antibiotics; this is useless, since the varnish will not adhere firmly;
• in the presence of serious diseases (diabetes mellitus, kidney disease, endocrine system), gel polish is replaced with gel;
• hands before a manicure try not to steam, since excessive wateriness reduces the percentage of tenacity of the gel polish and especially the base;
• they use high-quality files in their work, and also try to purchase materials from one manufacturer (base, top and pigments);
• in order to paint the nail without bald spots and stripes, they try to pick up a varnish with dense pigmentation;
• drawings are performed with varnishes, diluting them with top; dense and viscous compounds in this case will leave steps between the print and the background;

• in order to prevent varnish from dripping onto the skin around the nail, a little varnish is collected on the brush, the excess is removed back, do not forget to form a glare;
• if during work it is necessary to use sliders, they try to ensure that there is no water on their front side, this reduces the grip with the top;
• all layers need to be dried in the base, they cannot be overdried, since this may crack the coating;
• you can not apply varnish on a cracked coating, it will still chip; if cracks are noticed after drying, you need to remove all layers and apply them again;
• the varnish must be stored in a dark place (this way it is preserved better), and during the manicure process you cannot keep it near the lamp;
• on the first day after performing a manicure, you should try to avoid contact with water and especially steaming hands.

For information on how to make a gel polish manicure at home, see the next video.