Ok, I know what you are thinking – it’s not Christmas anymore and the 12 days of Christmas are officially over! However I just had to share these photo’s taken as I painted my nails on Christmas eve with my newest beauty favourite and nail chip-a-holic lifesaver, the SensatioNail Gel Starter Kit (£69.99). The perfect DIY Gel Manicure kit with everything you’re going to need to do your own salon quality gel manicure at home, for a fraction of the cost. Amazing!
The Kit includes a Pro LED Nail Lamp, Gel Primer, Base/Top Coat, Gel Cleanser, Lint Free Wipes, a manicure stick and a Gel Nail Polish in a colour of your choice. I got this kit for my birthday in November which came with the gorgeous ‘Scarlett Red ‘- a bold, bright colour, perfect for adding a touch of glam, and great for the festive season too.
The kit is really easy to use, with clear step-by-step instructions. The only thing I found tricky was getting the colour on perfectly, red is such a bold colour and I spent ages trying to perfect each nail without touching the skin, which was even harder on my right hand. It’s also important to paint the tip of each nail, this can be tricky as well – especially if your nails are quite short like mine. To seal the colour you pop your hand into the lamp between coats. The lamp has a handy timer that beeps at 30 seconds and fully turns off after 1 minute, so you really can’t go wrong with timings either.
After the final dry, I was disappointed to find my nails were still feeling tacky and scoured the instruction manual to see what I had done wrong. It turns out it’s really important to wipe the nails with the Gel Cleanser after application to take off a sticky layer of residue that stays on the nails. Anyway, after a quick wipe (which felt really wrong like I was going to smudge my hard work and beautiful colour!) I had perfect, shiny gel nails.
My finished nails, inclusive of Penguin press-on nail and glitter, ready for Christmas Day.
So, how did they last? Well, they did last the full 2 weeks, as promised – chip free! The polish is gorgeously shiny and gives a really professional finish. The only thing is that my nails grow so quickly, they had grown out a little by this point – however it wasn’t too noticeable! We won’t discuss removal too much, as I did it ‘the naughty way‘ (I picked them off…) but you can buy the proper Remover from Boots too. This can take a while to soak the gel off but causes less damage. Although, if I’m really honest my nails didn’t seem to bad at all after my removal method!
Overall, I couldn’t recommend this set enough! I’m now a gel-addict and can’t wait to add a few more shades to my collection! I was lucky enough to get two other colours for Christmas, Sugar Plum and Raspberry Wine which are just as beautiful too. There are over 50 shades (priced £15 each), including 6 new glitters, so I’ll have to keep adding to my collection, over time.
Have you tried a DIY Gel Manicure? How did you find it?
