Hard Gel Nails: Everything You Need to Know
21.11.2022 - 22:47
/ glamour.com
had reached a peeling point and I’d indulged the urge to polish-pick, leaving a mottled mess on my hands. Looking for a fix, I scrambled to a sundry store and snatched anything I could get my hands on—nail files, , and a small silver pot of nail adhesive. I returned to my hotel room and within moments of unscrewing the small pot, I was dumbfounded. The stuff was far from the adhesive I’d expected. It wasn’t gel polish, either.
In fact, it resembled nothing I’d known.It turns out, the resiny, sap-like goo-pot was hard gel, A.K.A. builder gel, which is a thick, glossy manicure medium with myriad uses. Most commonly, it’s used to add length, as it’s “strong enough to create nail extensions,” notes , a cosmetic chemist based in Ohio.
Similar to acrylic, hard gel can be , and transform even the shortest nails into . If you have yet to try hard gel, or even understand its capabilities, you’re in for a treat. Below, your ultimate guide to hard gel—including how it differs from gel polish, the ways it can be used, and application tips straight from nail pros. “Hard Gel is a fantastic invention,” says Suzie, a seasoned nail technician and founder of , a Youtube channel with 2.5 million subscribers. “In my opinion, it is second to ,” she continues, “only because acrylic is just a little bit stronger.”Hard gel is used to extend the nail “99 percent of the time,” Suzie says.
Less frequently, it’s used for a non-extension technique referred to as a gel overlay. Overlays deliver a hard, protective coating over the natural nail “to protect or cover the nail and make it feel harder.”According to , hard gel is typically sold in small pots, and requires a special, densely-packed brush to apply. To transform from its wet, saplike state,
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