I watched the YouTube video on how to use this soak off tray so I had an idea of what to do. Being familiar with the NexGen process for a year was really helpful as I knew what the steps were.
First off, here are the supplies I got together for this removal process.
From the left is the Oceans of Beauty soak off dish, acetone, the iphone soak off clips and to the right, several coarse files and buffing blocks. Oh and there are cotton pads there too.
Here is a closer look at the removal tray.
The top part is where your fingertips go and the base is for hot water. Here is the tray all set up ready to go.
Now in the YouTube video, she used no lint pads that I didn't have on hand. First you use the coarse file and buffer block to take the shine off your gel nails. Remember mine had nail tips and too thick gel. Once that is done, it's time to soak. She suggests that every minute, you wipe off the soft gel with these non lint pads.
I tried this with regular old cotton pads and let's just say a HUGE mess was made. Learn from me people and do not do that! I had cotton strands on all nails of both hands and it was a freakin mess.
Here is the proper soak off position. Damn my hands look freakin old here! While this is a cool concept, because I didn't have the right pads to help with the removal it wasn't working for me. I also found that the water underneath did not stay hot for long at all. The heat is to help speed up the process.
My issue with this at that time was the fact that I had the nail tips and too much nail glue and too thick gel layers to get through. I will try this method again with my next removal try. What I ended up doing was copying what my salon does, which is just a bowl of hot acetone with a wad of cotton in there to rub your nails against during the soaking process.
This is what I ended up doing. Grabbing a cheap bowl, microwaving acetone (probably not a good thing to do) and soaking that way. Here is what my nails looked like after I got all the gel off.
This is not nail damage, just cuticles and dry patches from soaking in acetone. The next step is to lightly buff your nails and remove the cuticle. I chose not to add nail tips this time.
I was very careful to do very thin layers of gel and did my two dips again with Light Pink from Oceans of Beauty. Here is what that looks like.
Yes I still need a ton of practice, but this is way better than last time! My thoughts on this though was I was so careful to do thin coats that I was afraid I would break a nail. It has been four days and so far I have not broken a nail. However, they are not that long here. As I grow them out, I think thicker coats will be smarter for me to do.
Here are the end results.
Pretty cool eh? I am learning as I go. I've found it is extremely important to clean the rims of the bottles like the top coat and the structure as it will get stuck closed and the brush will separate from the lid. Yes this happened to me several times!
So far I am extremely happy with the EZ Dip gel process. This again took me a good two and a half hours, but a lot of that was the soaking off the too thick layers. I don't think next time will take as long. The dip part is the fastest part. I still am getting the gel into my cuticle area, but as it grows out, I've been filing it down. I am planning on growing my nails out longer than this too.
Oh and Oceans of Beauty gave me a coupon code for your first order. 20% off! Use FPM20 at the check out. I see they now have those chrome nails. I'm not sure that's for me.
Do you have any questions? Let me know!
Until next time people. Any thoughts out there?
