Gelish Manicure: Day One

I'm super excited about my new beauty endeavor: soak off manicures!  Yay!  A soak off is basically the same thing as a shellac, except you use special nail polish that cures under a lamp.  I got obsessed with interested in the idea when Sephora released its soak off kit a few weeks ago.  I was going to buy it right away, but I did some research (at the urging of my dear friend Sarah) and I discovered a lot of different brands making the same thing.  I decided to go with the gelish system.  It was less expensive than Sephora and there are many more polish colors to choose from.  For my curing lamp, I decided to spend the extra money and spring for an LED lamp instead of a UV lamp.  The LED lamp cures faster and you don't need to worry about getting skin cancer from the UV light.  (Not sure if that's a myth or not, but I don't want to take my chances.  Finger cancer?  No thanks!)

The best thing about the soak off manicure is that it lasts for two weeks, totally chip free.  I was so sick of my nail polish chipping off within a day of painting.  My nails always looked like crap, and I thought it was kind of unprofessional looking.  My mom recently started getting shellac nails and she now swears by them, but I don't want all the hassle of going to the nail salon every three weeks get them.  (Is it just me, or do other people feel really awkward in those places?)  In conclusion, I'm really hoping this works out for me!  The polish was super easy to apply.  The trick is to seal the ends of your nails well so the polish doesn't peel up.  Time will tell if I did that part correctly.  Speaking of time, here is my manicure, day one:

Don't  you love that color!!??  I'll report back on how this works out!  Though easy to apply, they are supposedly a bitch to take off, so I'm really hoping to get a full two weeks out of them.

FYI: I saved a lot of money by buying all the pieces of the system a la cart from Amazon and Sally Beauty Supply.  If you're interested in trying this out, leave a comment and I can tell you what I bought where.  I also discovered that before you order anything from Sally, join their mailing list.  They send out 10-20% off coupons almost weekly.  Oh, and look into joining their customer rewards club.  It cost $5, but it saves a lot of money in the long run if you are buying something expensive like this.