FFS

So being too busy and lazy to re-do my soak off, I've been wearing a lot of regular nail polish.  So guess what happened?  I broke a friggen nail of course!

So I'm sporting one acrylic nail now - the middle one obviously.  I don't even remember the last time I broke a nail this badly.

Funny how it looks completely different under different lighting.  Anyways after I fixed my broken nail with acrylic I painted a fresh soak off manicure.  This is Entity One - Test Shot with CND addititive Haute Pink scrubbed into the bottom half and then the accent nail is OPI Gelcolor Pompeii Purple topped with Akzentz Aurora Pink Sparkle.  Not really a great colour combo so I ended up painting over them all (except the ring finger) with regular black polish but didn't take a photo.

This is similar to one I've done before.  It's Gelish Seafoam but with one of the new holiday additives - Plum Love scrubbed into the tips.

And I added a little water decal accent again.

Simple, just the way I like it.

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Couple of Clients

This is OPI Gelcolor in Are We There Yet?  I scrubbed some gold glitter into her accent nails and stamped a little brown butterfly at the bottom of each nail.  She was a Gel Polish virgin and I'm waiting to hear back if I've converted her or not.

And my favourite Client - my Mom.  She ruined her nails by filing them when she went on vacation for 3 weeks so she's back to Gel Extensions again.  These are Akzentz Classic Gel Extensions with Shellac in Cake Pop on top and then stamped with Konad.  They remind me of pajamas.

So why is my Mom my favourite Client?  Well she never ever complains (unlike my sister), she lets me do whatever I want (the only rule is no black), and best of all she cleans my house in return!

Anyone out there want free nail services for lawncare? lol

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Gel Polish Swatch Porn

I feel like I'm inviting trouble by using 'porn' in this post title but really what else can I call it?  Maybe 'hi, my name is Pamela and I have a problem...'

Here are my glitters and reds.

The pinks, corals, neutrals, sheers.

Silvers, browns, greys and black.

The purples.  Surprising how many vampy purples I have.

And the best for last - greens and blues.

I've officially had to split these between 2 key rings now.  Having too much choice sometimes makes it hard for my Clients to make a quick decision too.  I don't even want to think about how much this has cost me, ugh.

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Before and after - short extensions

This Client wanted some nice nails for a wedding and typically does gel polish but had a few nasty breaks, so I suggested some short gel extensions.

I used white french tips, which I don't typically use.  Some of her nails were so short that the tip needed to be placed further down the nail, but in the end didn't turn out too badly. 

I added a little konad flower from the Pro Plate 1.  She likes a more rounded nail shape but I'm not a fan.

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Practice makes perfect

Since I have a full time day job I don't get as much practice as I'd like doing extensions.  I've really only done one set to date for a paying client, the rest have all been freebies.  But if I want paying clients I need to keep my skills up, which are far from perfect anyways.

Sometimes I'm left with no choice but to practice on myself.  Which is frustrating because I clearly have no problems growing and maintaining my natural nails.  This is a set of gel extensions I did back in January where I first noticed a real improvement in my skills.

One of the first things I struggled with was fitting the right tip size.  I can really notice it in the first few photos I did.  The shape of the nail bed is something I still need practice on but I've definitely improved.  The pointer finger here has a nice shape although I think it makes the nail look noticeably fake.

This set followed the shape of my natural nails quite closely as the free edge grows fairly straight out rather than curve like the shape of most nail extensions.  I also made them quite thin and used my favourite new brand of gels - Akzentz Options.  I'm also pretty lucky that my nails have a naturally high C-curve so they are a dream to apply extensions to.  Most people tend to have flatter or wider nails.

The Akzentz Options gels are a soak off gel product.  Removal is not as simple as Shellac or gel polish but they don't need to be buffed off like hard gels.  However because of this, they are more of a temporary extension.  In the area I live in it works well because most people don't want to wear extensions for a long period of time.  Like any type of extensions the better they are cared for, the longer they will last.

These are nails I wore the first week of my new job.  The job is going well so far, I'm happy with it.  In fact I went to work for a direct competitor so it's like I just changed locations only :)

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Random soak offs

Now when I said my new camera was shitty I wasn't joking:

This is just a plain old french with gel polish on natural nails. I used OPI Alpine Snow for the tips.  I got a kick out of this because it really looks like I'm wearing extensions.

And then this one shortly after.  I used OPI Gelcolor in Pink Flamenco and then Lincoln Park After Dark.  Finished it off with a konad stamp.

And finally this was the one I got loads of compliments on and nobody could believe these were my natural nails.  I used a little bit of Shellac Silver Chrome in a diagonal french and then dabbed on Akzentz Options Aurora Sparkle in Silver.  I stamped with konad and did a little dotting as well.  I actually wore this for 3 weeks since the growth was hardly visible.

I have some post ideas rolling around in my head but I'm not sure if there is any interest.  Some feedback would be great as I'm not entirely sure that my posts on soak off gels are helpful or interesting.  I have probably 100 gel polishes now that I could swatch, I could do a gel marble tutorial, removal tutorial, embedding/layering tutorial, gel polish tips/tricks.  I am going to state up front though that I won't be doing any tutorials on nail extensions since I don't believe that it's something you should attempt without the proper training, and the available products for a non-professional are complete garbage so it's not even worth your time.  Soak off gels however are becoming more widely available and there's really minimal risk of damage other than the usual picking and peeling that people tend to do.  Besides, soak off gels are really what sparked my interest in becoming a certified Nail Tech.  I have a ton of knowledge on these products so feel free to ask or suggest anything you like.

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