All you need is love… and a little clear gel nail polish.
Love the shine and durability of gel nail polish but don’t have a humongous gel nail polish collection? Same. You probably have years of plain old regular nail polish you love in colors you can’t find in gel polish that still need to be used. To get the best of both use this clear gel nail polish trick and you can save time and money on gel manicures, and it’s one of the best ways to prevent chipped nails forever.
Clear gel nail polish trick
To get this clear gel nail polish trick to work you’ll still need a uv/led light to set the polish. They aren’t hard to find or terribly expensive anymore, this one is only $10! And, of course you’ll need a clear gel top coat. Those are fairly inexpensive now, too.
Paint your nails as usual with your standard nail polish and let dry. This is absolutely critical to getting this gel nail polish trick to work correctly. And we’re not talking like a two minute wait, the regular nail polish needs to be fully dried or else it can make the manicure chip worse, trust. Do your manicure (like these DIY pink quartz nails) while you’ve got something else going on so you don’t feel like you’re just waiting around. Watch your favorite movie, pen your novel, whatever. Wait an hour if you need to before moving on.
Can we take a minute to oogle this nail polish? It’s ILNP’s Juliette polish and it’s gorgeous. For this particular manicure I did a simple glitter gradient so it would grow out nicely.
When your polish is fully dry, then you can apply a thin layer of gel top coat. Make sure you don’t get it on your skin because you need it to seal to your nail to prevent chipping.
Cure the polish for a minute and you’ve got your custom nail art sealed in for well over a week.
Because you’re not using gel polish with your gel top coat, you probably won’t get the full two weeks of a gel manicure. But, it’s better than spending two hours on a manicure just to have it chip in a day. Plus that shiny gel top coat makes even the thickest glitters feel totally smooth.
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