For Gel Nail Newbies (from a gel nail newbie)

 When I posted about using gel nail polish in memory of my late niece, I didn't get into the details.  If you saw my that post, you can tell that my niece was a naturally artistic person. She did her nails herself - even when she used lengthening tips! And she also had beautiful hands...

And steady hands!

See? She was a lefty so her right hand here looks amazing.

Anyway...

This post is all about what I'd tell someone who is trying gel polish for the first time.

You need some basic supplies.

builder gel kit under $10

Because gel polish is nothing like lacquer, you need some things you might not just have in your beauty box. No one told me this and I had to learn as I went so... I recommend having at a minimum:

• Gel polish - liquid or cream. Color polish is where can stay on a deep budget. (It's the base and top coats where you won't want to totally cheap out! I started with the cheapest but most decent polishes I could find from a couple of well-known brands: Beetles and Modelones. I also got some black polish that I love from the GAOY brand and some jelly polish from Blaico. I really like all of them. I tried and returned a cream palette from Sedbuwza. I found a cream palette from MEFA that is decent. Overall, so far I prefer liquid over cream for opacity and ease of use. (Keep in mind that colors are tricky. What you see on the product page might not be what you get for real. Check reviews because a lot of people post about what the shades look like on actual nails and in home lighting.) BTW, this might help with differences between types of polishes.
• 100% acetone. Regular polish remover will not work on gel polish. (Here are a dermatologist's tips for

  

  So cheap at Walmart

  removing with acetone.)
• Cotton balls or cotton pads to use with the acetone. I find that poly balls don't work as well. Cotton balls are the most economical, IMO.
• Nail files. You need a regular one, one to buff down ridges, one to smooth the top of the nail, and one strong one to file down the top coat of gel polish. Filing down the top layer of gel polish makes it easier to remove the rest with acetone. Or...
• A peelable base coat. This makes it much easier to remove polish (no filing) and I usually only have to use acetone to clean up any color residue. I also find that this is easier on my nails since I change my color often. (This peelable base is the one I use and really like.)
• "No-wipe" Base and top coat polish. "No wipe" means not having to wipe the tacky residue of cured polish with alcohol. I just happened to luck out when I bought my base/top coat set and it was the no-wipe kind. NOTE: Even with a polish of so-so quality, the top coat is the main thing, IMO. It will determine shine and set the entire nail. My top coat is excellent.
• Cuticle oil. Or any good kind of oil to nourish your nails and cuticles. To be honest, it seems that most cuticle oils are made of a combo of oils - safflower, jojoba, flax, etc. I started out using some marula oil and I have used olive oil diluted with grapeseed oil. Don't get caught up in the brands and bottles and cuteness. But you do need to take really good care of your nails. The polish and acetone can be stressing to them.

  

  No wipe base/top + cuticle oil

• Brushes. Good gel polish application has a lot to do with the brushes you use. And do NOT get caught up spending a lot of money on brushes made "just for gel". I bought a pack of 7 art brushes for just over two dollars. They came in various sizes and work perfectly. Just make sure the brushes are good. I got these and you might even find some cheaper at a local store. Now, if you get into doing gel "art" stuff, you might need to find finer-sized or specialty brushes.
• Tin foil or "nail clips". These are for securing the acetone-soaked cotton on your nails long enough to dissolve the gel when removing it. I tried foil and it's awkward and pricey. I got some good (but fairly cheap) clips. It was a good bargain because the kit included some papers, a couple of nail files, and a "cuticle peeler". The peeler is used to peel the dissolved gel from your nails if needed. The papers taught me that I prefer using cotton for the acetone!

  

  54W for around $10

• *NOT A NECESSITY* Tape. There is tape used to keep your polish from going onto the sides. I'm a messy manicurist but I am not yet using tape. I can remove any mess with acetone. However, tape looks to be really useful for doing artful stripes and lines on your nails.
• Sunscreen and lotion. I use sunscreen before using the UV lamp. Also, I am a lotion fanatic when it comes to my body. Now that I am using a UV lamp on my nails, I go heavy on the hand lotion.
• Patience, patience, and more patience. I have a cheaper UV lamp so it takes a bit longer to completely cure polish. That's fine. That's why I make sure to use sunscreen.

That should get you started before you turn into a complete product junkie!

Of course, I have discovered a couple of things that I wanted to try...

in addition to the basics:

• 

  3 coats of Blaico Jelly Gel
  

  "Jelly" gel colors. Okay. I actually bought my set of jelly polish by accident. I just saw colors I liked and only realized when I got them that they are jelly. Jelly is a milky-looking kind of finish. The color is buildable. There are photos somewhere in this post of how my jelly manicure looked like.
• Chrome/metallic polish. This is sooo pretty in photos. When I couldn't find a chrome color that I liked, I thought of a gold chrome eyeshadow I have somewhere. Looking it up, I learned that, yes, Virginia, you can use powder eyeshadow on gel nails. So there! (In the very next post, I will discuss my experience using this technique...) 
• Match your eyes & nails. It's not just chrome shadow that you can use. You can apparently use any kind of powder shadow to color your nails. There are a lot of YouTube how-to videos out there. To be honest, I didn't know that you could use eyeshadow to color with lacquer polish also. 
• Builder gel. I won't go deep into this until I have used it but... Apparently, this is great for adding shape to your nails and giving them more strength for the length of the manicure. I have flat nail beds and would like more of a curve to the center. I can't wait to see if I can do this using builder gel. You can also use builder gel along with false nail tips to create more length. 
• Ombre nails just involve using stripes of different colors before using a top coat to kind of blur the lines. Who knew?

Tips, time & and money-savers:

• Always apply gel polish in coats as thin as you can. Because it doesn't dry without UV light, I find that if I need to, I can use a clean brush to wipe down excess gel before drying. Applying thin coats is really best if you are building color.
• Wipe any gel off your skin before drying. I have not had problems but I have read reviews where some people do get an itch or irritation. I wrap the tip of a toothpick in cotton and use acetone to remove any gel from my edges and cuticles before drying.
• Another reason not to get the gel on the edges: when it dries, you have a "lift" piece that makes it too easy to pull the polish loose. (I hope that makes sense!) The gel will peel and lift if you pick at the edges.
• Know that most people recommend not using lacquer ("regular") polish with gel polish. Some people say that you can do so and some people say that it causes drying problems. My opinion: I use gel because it dries faster and lasts longer so there is no need for lacquer. So far, any colors of polish I like in lacquer, I can find in gel polish. So... up to you.
• Remember what I said about not getting caught up in labels? Not only can you spend more buying brushes that are labeled as being for gel. The same goes for finding cotton pads and tools. Just look for basic stuff and leave "gel nails" out of the search criteria.
• Not only can you do powder eyeshadow for chrome/metallic nails, but also look for cheaper brands. It's just because I am cheap that I thought of using my eyeshadow. I realized that it looked exactly like the chrome nail powders. Look for cheap palettes from e.l.f., l.a. colors, Wet 'n Wild, etc. I would even recommend checking the Dollar Store and the sale bins at Walmart for this. I won't put cheap stuff on my skin but I will use them in polish for my nails (which are protected by a base coat).
• When looking for chrome powders, search for "shimmer" and "metallic" and more things come up. 
• I personally don't like thick glitter in nail polish. I find that I have to do a heavy top coat to keep the residue from scratching and pulling at fabrics I touch. I recommend looking for eyeshadows with fine glitter - if you are going to use glitter at all.
• If you buy from Amazon or some other popular online stores, make sure to look for off-site reviews. I like adding "Reddit" to the end of any search. Reviews and feedback on Reddit tend to be a lot more honest and less self-conscious.
• If you are shopping on Amazon, don't be afraid to look at lesser-known brands. Remember, you can usually return things. (Make sure to read the product's return policy notes!) I did have that fail and return with the cream polish but I turned around and found another small brand item that works fine.

One thing that using gel polish forces me to do more regularly is to take care of my nails. I take better care of my cuticles for sure. 

I hope that this was helpful to the newbies out there. I am having a lot of fun doing my nails - more than when I used slow-drying lacquer. You can get started with the basics for under $35 - and that's cheaper than most visits to a nail salon.

Peace

--Free

P.S.: I recommend starting with cheaper items until you get the hang of applying gel. Just don't skimp too hard on the base and top coats!

Forgive any bad editing. I was working on this over 2 days and changed up some things.