Pros and Cons of Shellac and UV Gel Manicures - A Girl's Gotta Spa!

Pros and Cons of Shellac and UV Gel Manicures

 
Pros and Cons of Shellac (TONS of comments on this post - good and bad!)
When I first heard about Shellac, UV and LED gel manicures, I was over the moon excited. I could finally have polish on my nails sans chipping and polish peeling for more than 3 days and all without having to apply fake nails. In August, while at Cosmoprof, I received an awesome manicure from CND in Hot Pop Pink (pictured below.) The manicure took just as long as having acrylic nails or wraps put on (an hour) and the result looked just as amazing. I remarked to the manicurist just how gorgeous her own nails looked, as they were long and it didn't even appear to be naturally her own. She told me they were and that wearing the Shellac helped her achieve the length. I believed her, until my own experience has led me to believe otherwise. My CND Shellac lasted me 3 weeks. I was ecstatic. I applied CND's SolarOil to my cuticles and under the tips of my nails on a daily basis as instructed by the manicurist. My nails had grown a bit during this time and I was excited to go for round two of another CND Shellac at my local salon. This time I went for a French manicure CND Shellac. My nails were finally long enough to adorn some white tips and I was stoked. I went about applying the SolarOil again daily, but this time it only took 3 days for one of my nails to peel and the Shellac to come off. Day 4, one of my nails broke and it became clear how brittle my nails were becoming. By day 5, all of my nails were either peeling (the nail itself, not the polish) or breaking.   Looking at my very soft, peeling nails, I decided to not apply any polish at all for 2 weeks, but continued to put the SolarOil on them. But sadly, they didn't seem to recover. In the meantime, I had been sent the complete Red Carpet Manicure LED Starter Kit and as I was about to have my first television appearance, I knew my nails had to look amazing. So I used the kit, which comes complete with a portable LED light and is a DIY home LED manicure kit. Colors were gorgeous, time was still about 1 hour to complete the manicure and I used their Revitalize cuticle oil daily. But by day 3, my nails were peeling and even more brittle. I now had stubs for nails (even shorter than pictured above.) Finally I asked fellow friends in the salon business and fellow bloggers if they experienced the same of gel manicures, and it was a resounding yes.
Pros: Manicure can potentially last up to 3 weeks No chipping Manicure is instantly dry upon last UV go round Mirror finish (nails look wet, but aren't) Can DIY and look just as amazing as at the salon Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous Cons: Very drying to your nails Repeated application (without a breather) will result in brittle and peeling nails Wear time gets less and less with each application If you don't apply the cuticle oil daily, your nails will dry out a lot quicker Costs add up, especially if the manicure doesn't last 2-3 weeks CND Shellac requires it's own Remover Wraps According to some doctors, the UV lamps can cause skin cancer (but the jury is still out on this) So it appears that, at least for me, a CND Shellac or UV gel manicure will only happen for special events (like holidays, TV appearances, events) and cannot be worn all of the time. Unless I want to continue having man hands with my stubby nails. In the meantime, I will be in nail re-cooperation with Qtica's Cuticle Repair Balm and Qtica Nail Growth Stimulator to regain my length.  I'd love to hear from you: what has your experience been with UV gel manicures? Subscribe to A Girl’s Gotta Spa! Watch our reviews on YouTube, see our pins on Pinterest and check us out on Instagram and G+. Got a Kindle? We’re on Kindle tooShannon on G+ *Disclosure: affiliate links

70 comments

Shannon Nelson
Shannon Nelson
Audra, I was afraid to even attempt it! But they say that your neck and hands show the first signs of aging so it felt weird to not put on sunscreen like normal.
Audra
Audra
Hi Shannon – I had my first shellac manicure for my wedding back in October of last year and on our honeymoon I found out the unfortunate way that sunscreen does ruin the shellac manicure. Oh, it was awful! The polish turned tacky/sticky and dull. It was a mess!
Sam
Sam
There are a lot of factors that can contribute to the above mentioned problems. I am a licensed manicurist and have hit several bumps in the road with the product in the beginning but I sought out the proper training and I am no longer having any problems… A few suggestions: Don’t “soak your nails in acetone” the proper wraps are important because they focus on the polish its self instead of penetrating the whole nail, 2nd I had several clients curious about the uv exposure so i did some research and the company insists that the CND UV lamps are very low voltage and supply less exposure then driving your car without gloves on. I also had peeling nails starting to occur so we called the commpany and they said to ABSOLUTELY not buff the nails, each time you buff you remove a layer of the nail and so as it grows out and you get more and more applications you are removing a layer everytime so once your nails grow out there ends up being nothing left. Hope these tips help.
Shannon Nelson
Shannon Nelson
Hi Amber, I worried about the same thing (skin cancer on my hands) and mentioned sunscreen. The CND manicurist told me that sunscreen will ruin your shellac and advised me against it. Have you noticed that to be true for yourself?
Amber C
Amber C
I am a nurse and unfortunately the only option for us IS shellac/gel. I have had shellac done at LEAST once every 2 or so months for the last year and I haven’t had any issues (i.e. peeling/breakage, etc.). The techs around here BARELY, if at all, buff my nails down and they still last at least 2-3 weeks. Acrylics are much more damaging. However, for those of you that swear by shellac (like me) make sure you put a high SPF sunscreen on your your hands prior to going to the salon. Even though your hands are only in there for a few minutes, it’s better to be safe than sorry. I can just see all of us running around with skin cancer on the hands, 10 years from now, bc of the UV exposure from our manicures. lol
Shannon Nelson
Shannon Nelson
Amanda, another brand is supposed to be sending me this nail polish that is supposed to be like shellac…but without needing the UV light etc. Not sure how it will be in terms of my actual nails though. Stay tuned!
Amanda
Amanda
I had the same problem with shellac. I loved the fact that I could leave the salon with dry nails and not have to worry about them chipping as fast as regular polish. I started having breakage a lot and switched manicurist. The new tech told me the other one was buffing too much, although I’ve read you don’t even have to buff. I would love to use shellac since I messed up my manicure yesterday after 10 minutes of leaving. I just dont want to damage my real nails:(
Shannon Nelson
Shannon Nelson
I agree it depends on the manicurist (although I’d hope they would all be trained the same with shellac), but I didn’t have artificial nails on at the time. Actually the last time I had artificial nails was 16 years ago once I saw what they were doing (damaging) to my nails.
revel nails
revel nails
It depend on the manicurist does your nails and how she prepare the nails…I went through allot of product on my own nails to find the one that work for my client…you cannot take fake nails off and apply shellac on and expect it to fix the damage from the artificial nails have left your nails with!. ..you have to grow them out under the fake nails. Once you grow your own healthy nails out, she have to treat it like apply polish and not over puff them…find the right nail tech. N you will love the product.good luck :-)
NancySyd
NancySyd
I think that the big culprit in causing damage is the removal. I find that improper removal really is what does the damage. Improper removal can mean a few things. The most common is soaking off in a bowl of acetone. When you soak instead of using wraps, the acetone soaks into the nails from both sides and acetone is a powerful defatter and dries nail out. The second is scraping, that is, using too much force to scrape the gel off the nails. Scraping caused tiny gouges in the nails that weaken the nails. Shellac should not be scraped, just pushed off. If it needs scraping, re-soak the wrap and rewrap. If that’s not working for you, try using a regular basecoat like CND Stickey or Orly bonder under your Shellac. It makes removal easier without affecting durability. And of course, using solar oil is a major issue in alleviating dry, brittle nails.

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