Gelous Nail Gel Coat + Orly Polishileld = A Great Manicure

Last time I had a gel manicure, I was tight on funds so I had to remove the stuff myself.  If you've ever tried this, you probably know what a PITA it can be.  I filed down the shiny part and put soaked cotton balls held by tin foil on my fingertips and waited, waited, waited.  After half an hour I still had to scrape the crap off my nails.  It took forever and was somewhat uncomfortable.  I much prefer spending $10 for someone else to take it off.  Anyway, the wonderful thing about a gel manicure is how smooooooth and shiiiiiiiny your nails are!  I just love it.  They also feel a bit thick, notice that?  I just love how a gel manicure feels and looks.  Thus started my quest for an at home faux gel manicure. 

You may have seen DIY Gel Manicure instructions from Pinterest, which is how I found Gelous Advanced Nail Gel Coat.  I attempted the DIY Gel Manicure.  It's still not as awesome as a real gel manicure, but it does come satisfyingly close enough.

First, you're going to need this:

I picked this up at Sally's Beauty Supply.  I haven't been to one in years and years and years, and had no idea where one was located near me.  Funny enough, there were two!  They were hiding in plain view.  I just had to know where they were.

So, the Pinterest directions tell you to vary the time between coats.  You paint on the Gelous, then your nail polish, then the Gelous, then nail polish, then your top coat (NOT Gelous).  BFF Google told me right away not to use Gelous as a top coat because it will stay sticky.  It's meant as a base coat.  So.  Fair warning to you.  On my first attempt I timed all my coats according to the Pinterest directions, but I found that if you don't wait until your polish is dry to the touch, then put Gelous on top, the Gelous gets all .... smeary.  Like when you put on your top coat too soon and the brush tip gets tainted with your polish color.  I painted the next coat when the previous coat was dry to the touch.  So do that.  Also make sure to cap your tips like they do at the salon.  This really does help prevent chips!

I wanted a nice slick shiny top coat, but I also wanted to make sure the shine would last more than a couple of days (like how some top coats wear off), so I picked up Orly Polishield from Ulta:

This stuff is pretty awesome.  It stays super shiny.  Orly had another super shiny promising top coat that I was tempted to buy, but I liked that Polishield promised to do it all.  As far as I can tell, it does!  Here is my manicure after 5 days:

Shiny and barely any chips!  I didn't take this picture to post on the internet, so it's not perfect.  You can see white polish at the tips because I used white under the pink (which is WAY more glowy and awesome in person {Orly Passion Fruit, the brightest and most obnoxious pink in the store}), but no chips.  I did start to get some small chips on my right hand within a couple of days of that picture though.

Another perk of this, besides not needing a UV lamp, is everything comes off with nail polish remover.  You don't need a chisel or any other special tools to get it off.  Bam!  Try it!