How Do You Remove Gel Nails?
Arguably the best way to remove gel nails is to go into a salon and have them removed. However you can remove them yourself. You must be very careful not to damage your natural nail. The easiest way is to just let them grow out. It could take a few months and depending on the quality of the product, they may fall off before that. If you do decide to remove them yourself keep in mind that it is very easy to damage your nail plate if you have not been properly trained in how to remove them. So you are taking a chance that you will hurt yourself.
There are two different kinds of gel nails soak off and non-soak off. To make it even more confusing, several companies make gel nail products, but they call them something else like gel polish, polygel, acrogel or shellac.
The sad fact is that some nail techs are so confused; sometimes they have not had enough training on a particular product line. They might not even know how to remove it.
To make matters worse, there are some salons that will tell you they used gel, but they actually used a completely different product, perhaps with a gel top coat.
Not all salons do this. There are many, many quality salons out there. Try www.findanailtech.com to locate a salon in your area.
I find it best to stay away from “discount” salons. If their prices seem too good to believe, they probably are. They might be using cheap imported products and may cut corners on their sanitation practices.
The first step is to try to soak them off.
Take a small cotton ball and wet it with acetone. Place the cotton ball on your nail, and then wrap your finger with tinfoil to keep the cotton ball in place and prevent the acetone form evaporating.
Wait 10 minutes.
Remove the foil and cotton ball and try to scrape the gel off with an orangewood stick or a cuticle pusher. You should not need to scrape very hard at all and make sure you do not pierce your nail plate.
If it does not come off very easily, you do not have a soak off gel.
To remove a non-soak off gel you will need a nail file. Gently file the top of the gel to thin it out. It is best to leave a little bit of the product on the nail. Do not try to file it completely off or you could file down through your nail plate. It will take some time, but be very careful and gentle. Do not be in a hurry. Once you have it thinned out you can use a three step nail buffer to soothe it out and make it shiny.
To find a nail tech near you visit www.findanailtech.com