How to apply gel polish at home

Fashion trends of the coming season dictate their own rules. A manicure is not just an addition to an image, but a “calling card” of every fashionista. Nails can now tell everything about their owner: her status, mood, state of mind. Fortunately, a huge number of designs and materials allow every girl and woman to create a unique gel polish design that will highlight their unique individuality and make them stand out from the crowd.

In 2021, both classics and new technologies and finds are at the peak of fashion. The trend is classic design, a combination of gloss and matte texture, broken glass, French and anti-French, multi-colored manicure, contrasting patterns, asymmetry, decor and bright shades.

Benefits of gel polish

Although gel polish appeared on the Russian market relatively recently, it managed to immediately win over an entire army of fans, which is not surprising: the material combines the best qualities of gel for extensions and nail polish.

So what exactly are the benefits of gel polish?

Persistence. While regular polish lasts on nails from 2 to 5 days, gel polish lasts on nails from 2 weeks to a month.

The coating not only remains on the nail for a long time, but also does not lose its attractiveness over time: it does not wear off at the ends, does not chip with frequent contact with water and does not lose its attractive glossy shine. This is an undeniable advantage for women who do not have the opportunity to update their manicure every day.

Nail protection. A nail plate coated with gel polish is reliably protected from the effects of water, household chemicals, nail polish removers and other adverse factors. This gives your nails time to rest and recover, which visibly strengthens them and gives them a healthy appearance.

Low price. Although coating nails with gel polish is much more expensive than regular nail polish, the effect of the durable material lasts many times longer, which ultimately becomes more profitable than constantly adjusting the manicure.

Width of application area. Gel polish, unlike acrylic, does not thicken nails, which allows it to be used for the design of short or wide nails.

Improving the appearance and shape of the nail. Using gel polish is the best solution for those with uneven or excessively thin nail plates.

Safety. Unlike regular polish, gel polish does not contain toxic formaldehyde, the vapors of which are a strong carcinogen.

Due to the absence of this component, the gel polish does not have the persistent unpleasant odor inherent in ordinary nail polishes.

Possibility of attaching volumetric elements. Thanks to some properties of the coating, it is very easy to attach rhinestones, glitter or bouillons to it, which allows you to bring to life many ideas for manicure with gel polish.

Gel polish on short nails

Owners of short, neat nails often worry about how gel polish will look.
In pictures we most often see manicures on long nails, but will it look so good on short ones? Definitely yes. Gel polish on short nails looks very feminine, neat and cute. The main thing is to choose the right color and nail design. It is important that the cuticle and skin around the nail plate are in perfect condition and that the shape of the nails is neat. The following gel polish options are most suitable for short nails:

Matte textures in dark shades. Dark colors visually lengthen nails and make fingers more graceful. Bordeaux, purple, dark chocolate, even black - these shades look luxurious, especially if several nails are matte and the rest are glossy.
Minimum decor. Short nails should look stylish and laconic. Too many rhinestones, designs and other decor “overload” short nails, and they don’t look very good.
Bright multi-colored manicure. Short nails painted in different contrasting colors look very beautiful and cheerful, the brighter the better.
French and its variants. Anyone who thinks that French is for long nails is mistaken. On short nails, French, especially deep, and anti-French look very stylish. Preferably - in a classic look - pastel shades, a delicate nude background and a white “smile”.
Geometry. Short nails look very beautiful with stripes, triangles, and dots. Both asymmetry and strict symmetrical lines are suitable. Colors can be contrasting, bright and bold.

Compound

To obtain a high-quality product, the creators of gel polish experimented a lot with its composition.

As a result, the main set of components was developed, thanks to which the gel polish has its outstanding properties. The film former is responsible for the durability of the coating; it is what is included in the extension gel.

To speed up the drying process, a photoinitiator was introduced into the composition, which accelerates the polymerization reaction.

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To adjust the consistency of the material, a special active diluent was included in it, and various pigments were included to add color.

In addition to the main components, other additives may be indicated on the packaging - they serve to impart special properties - elasticity, shine or other properties.

What is gel polish? What is good about gel nail polish?

Gel polish is a hybrid of regular nail polish and extension gel, which is why it has that name. The material combines the best qualities of both coatings: color and durability for up to 2-3 weeks.

It applies to the nail plate as easily as regular polish, which makes it easy to use it at home.

Due to the fact that the gel polish has absorbed the properties of a gel, it not only has durability, allowing you to wear the coating for 2-3 weeks, but also gives the nails additional rigidity. Gel polish strengthens the nail plate, which allows those with thin and brittle nails to grow longer.

In addition, women are well aware of the problem of smudged nail polish and long painful waits for it to dry, but with gel polish you can forget about this.

The gel polish is dried in a special lamp, which takes an average of 0.5-1 minutes. Of course, buying a lamp is associated with additional expenses, but it is worth noting that a lamp for curing gel polish will last you from 3 to 5 years! By purchasing it just once, you will have a flawless manicure for several years.

There is a myth that gel polish spoils nails, making them thin and brittle. But again, this is just a MYTH!

The gel polish itself does not affect the nail plate in any way. It can only deteriorate if the material is applied and removed incorrectly, and also if the owner of the manicure picks at the coating.

Trends – 2021

Nail technicians use all the capabilities of gel polish to create real masterpieces. Some of the techniques are most in demand this season. Which manicure gel and polish to choose in 2019?

Popular styles

Modern fashion is imbued with the ideas of feminism, naturalness and everyday convenience. These trends could not help but be reflected in manicure design - now natural colors, a minimum of decor and nail length are in fashion.

The days of excessively long, bright nails studded with rhinestones are finally passing. However, fashion is cyclical, so simplicity may again be replaced by pretentiousness.

Technicians

Nail art techniques in demand in 2021 can hardly be called new manicure products.

Rather, it is a redesign of long-known techniques, their modernization and improvement. Thanks to some techniques, even a boring design begins to play with new colors.

French

French manicure with gel polish is a kind of classic. It is simple, concise and never goes out of style.

In 2021, the French jacket has become even more in demand: this design is suitable for both simple business suits and bold evening dresses - just what a modern woman needs.

The undeniable advantage of this design is its versatility not only in the choice of clothing, but also in the age of the owner of the marigolds: the French style suits both young girls and respectable ladies.

If a simple French jacket seems boring and insufficiently expressive to you, it can be made much more interesting and expressive in several ways:

Rhinestones. Rhinestones have taken an honorable place in the hearts of many fashionistas, and no fewer girls dislike them.

But none of the girls from the opposing sides can disagree that a French jacket decorated with rhinestones looks dignified, elegant, without boring simplicity and bright vulgarity.

The main thing is not to get carried away with decoration and maintain a balance between simplicity and unusualness.

Glitter. Glitter, like rhinestones, is good in moderation. Decorate one or two accent nails on your hand with it or decorate the tips of your nails with it. An ombre made from sparkles of different shades looks great.

Confetti. Confetti are large sparkles. You can decorate a French nail this way: carefully place glitter on the accent nail so that the elements look like fish or dragon scales.

Broths. You should also do a caviar manicure only on a few nails, without going overboard with the decor.

Important: this season, try to move away from the usual practice of applying floral patterns on accent nails - in 2021 it has become irrelevant.

How to choose an online gel polish store?

Of course, each person chooses exactly the online store that he likes and meets his personal needs, however, there is a set of factors that are worth paying attention to when choosing any online store, even not in the nail industry.

What to pay attention to:

Availability of certificates.

An online store must have product quality certificates confirming its originality and safety of use. It is necessary to have positive reviews, not only on the products of the online store themselves, but also on work, service and resolution of conflict situations.

Quality assurance and customer support.

We provide quality guarantees for all our products, as well as guarantees of customer support in any controversial situations. Unfortunately, even in the most expensive and high-quality brands there is a possibility of defects, there is nothing to worry about, the main thing is to contact the support service in time, provide the necessary documents about the purchase of this product, as well as photographs of the product with the fact of defect or the product itself for exchange.

Partial redemption.

In our online store there is a relatively new partial redemption service, which allows you to select only the goods you need directly upon receipt of the parcel at the point of delivery and refuse shades and goods that turned out to be not what you imagined.

Keeping track of trends and new products.

Also a very important factor when choosing an online store is the timely arrival of new products and new trends in manicure. We monitor the latest new gel polishes and carefully select the best and most popular gel polish companies for our clients. Every year we bring out the fashionable shades of the season so that our customers can be in trend.

Taking care of clients.

We put together the best nail design ideas, we ourselves describe each shade of gel polish by density, texture and, based on this data, we create a convenient filter for choosing shades, and also, which is important for our clients, we provide the most reasonable prices for products.

Nude

Manicure in nude shades is gaining more and more popularity. You can make it much more attractive using the following methods:

Imitation of a velvety surface. Using a specialized top coat, rubs and powders, you can get an unusual matte, velvety finish. It gives the manicure an expensive look and unusual texture.

You can use this technique on all nails or combine matte and glossy finishes on one hand.

Drawings. Minimalism is in trend, so give up curls and complex floral motifs. All designs on the nail should be simple, unpretentious and schematic.

The best graphic style is stripes, polka dots, rectangles and other geometric shapes. In this case, it is better to use exclusively black color.

Gradient. Instead of a plain light nail, it is better to do a nude manicure in the ombre style. However, in addition to nude colors (milky, nude, café au lait, peach), you can use any pastel tones of different colors.

Watercolor drawings. If you are not ready to give up floral designs on the coating, then it is better to choose images in the watercolor style. Delicate, translucent images do not catch the eye, however, they greatly decorate the image.

Negative space. The inversion effect can be achieved using colorless varnish.

The main idea of this manicure is that the design applied to the nail remains transparent, while the background around it has color. Simple schematic images are suitable for this technique: stripes, circles, hearts, stars.

Important: when using the negative space technique, do not leave a “bare nail” under the design. First, paint it with a base of the natural color of your nail plate - this will make the manicure look more neat.

Effects in gel polishes, bases and tops

Due to the fact that classic gel polish has a sticky layer and is covered with a top coat, you can create a creative design on it using additional materials. And again the question of saving time arises! Masters and their clients want the design to also be included in the gel polish. And resourceful technologists add effects to durable coatings...

There are a great many such effects today, let’s look at a few of the most popular!

Magnetic gel polishes or gel polishes with the “Cat's Eye” effect appeared in Russia thanks to the Lianail company, which was the first to introduce such coatings to our fashionistas. They contain magnetic particles that rise to the surface when a magnet is applied. Today there are also a lot of magnets, they have different shapes so that microparticles form patterns directly on the nails. And the “Cat’s Eye” gel polishes themselves have been constantly refined and improved throughout their existence. If earlier they made it possible to create a so-called volumetric manicure with a highlight, now both the main tone and the highlight can shimmer in several shades at once!

TNL, Gel polish 5D Magnet effect No. 04

Magnetic gel polish (6 ml) on a transparent base, black, with lilac-pink/golden microglitters, translucent.

(15)

258 RUR

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Gel polishes with glitter also changed, despite the fact that they were incredibly popular at every stage. At first these were colored or transparent coatings, which contained a certain amount of glitter, more or less. Then manufacturers began to experiment, adding glitter of different colors, sizes and shapes to gel polishes. There have appeared gel polishes with fine shimmer, so indistinguishable from mother-of-pearl, or gel polishes reminiscent of festive fireworks, with a lot of sparkles of various shades. Now there is even “mica” - a durable coating with crushed foil, it seems as if you are applying only shiny particles to your nails without a base.

Klio Professional, Gel polish No. 245

Gel polish (8 ml) on a transparent backing, with red and silver holographic foil, translucent.

(21)

300 rub

300 RUR Buy

ruNail, Gel polish No. 3577

Gel polish (9 ml) on a transparent base, pinkish-brown color, with holographic sparkles of different sizes, translucent.

(18)

165 RUR

165 RUR Buy

Gel polishes with the “Thermo” effect consist of special components that are sensitive to temperature. As a result, the coating changes color: in warm weather it is one color, and in cold weather it is different. Very soon after the appearance of this effect, they began to supplement it with the same sparkles or combine it with “Cat Eye”.

FOX, Thermo Gel Polish No. 015

Gel polish (6 ml) burgundy/raspberry, with a lot of gold micro-glitter, translucent.

380 rub.

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A very interesting “Cashmere” effect: special particles in the gel polish have a color different from the main one, it looks like lint. The result is a “cozy” manicure.

Rio Profi, Fantasy Gel Polish No. 9

Rubber gel polish (7 ml) on a translucent white base, with scarlet microvilli, dense.

(4)

250 rub.

250 RUR Buy

Some brands go even further, coming up with their own effects that no one else has yet. For example, Bluesky with the Flower Gel collection - gel polishes for watercolor design with a spreading effect that appears after application to a special base. Or Irisk with their unique coating, the so-called metal line design base.

IRISK, Base, Reptile Gel Design Base, silver

Reptile Gel metallic design base (5 ml).

(16)

190 rub.

190 RUR Buy

More effects! Bases and tops

By the way, about bases and tops, they also do not go unnoticed. Especially recently, nail product manufacturers have been willing to experiment with adding color and effects to base and top coats.

As for bases, firstly, in addition to ordinary ones, they can be rubber (smoothing the nail plate) and camouflage (hiding imperfections of the nail plate). But there are also those that do not need to be covered with colored gel polish, because they already have everything you need for a stylish manicure. For example, bases from the Rosi brand, not only are they colored, they also contain glitter!

BEAUTY-FREE, Camouflage base No. 6, 8 ml

Camouflage base for gel polish (8 ml). Color: pink, without sparkles and mother-of-pearl, dense.

250 rub.

250 RUR Buy

Ice Nova, Rubber Base Luxury, 10 ml

Base coat, rubber base for gel polish.

(17)

350 rub.

350 RUR Buy

Well, among the tops there is even greater variety: regular, rubber, magnetic, matte, with various effects. There is also a combined version of the base and top “2 in 1”.

TNL, Magnet Effect Top, No. 2, blue

Applying a top coat will give the tint and cat-eye effect to regular gel polish.

190 rub.

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Lunar manicure

It seems like every girl has done the familiar moon manicure. Photos of lunar manicure with gel polish decorate the portfolio of every self-respecting master. What techniques are there to add variety to this design?

Holes of different shapes. Move away from the rule of making round holes. They can be oval, almond-shaped, triangular and even square - this will only add piquancy to the image.

Rhinestones and confetti. You can lay out small rhinestones or large confetti around the perimeter of the hole.

Whatever nail design you choose, the main thing is that it is in harmony with your style and attitude.

Don’t hide your individuality for the sake of fashion trends - go ahead and get the manicure of your dreams - gel polish will allow you to bring any design solutions to life.

Nail design with gel polish for long nails

To design long nails, gel polishes of various colors are used. Particularly popular among the fair half of humanity is gel polish with a cat's eye effect. The highlights on nails can be very diverse: vertical, horizontal, scattering, collecting, inclined, offset, etc. A cat's eye design is not difficult to make. This can be imitation snake skin, mosaics, animal skin prints, droplets, geometric patterns, monograms. Any of the listed options will look voluminous, therefore stylish and catchy.

Nail design with gel polish with cat's eye effect, photo

Those who want to plunge into the summer atmosphere can resort to bright designs. Nails can feature rainbow drops resembling Skittles gummies, ice cream, insects, balloons, flowers and more.

Bright nail design with gel polish, photo

The wine-colored varnish looks beautiful. Paint your nails this trendy color and then add white dots or a grid pattern.

A manicure complemented with matte gel polish in pastel colors looks attractive.

Do you want to bring creativity and brightness into your life? Pay attention to the rich neon colors: yellow, light green, coral, pink, blue, light blue.

Matte nail design with gel polish, photo

Floral prints are still in trend. A flower meadow on nails looks funny and lifts your spirits, because it is associated with warm, summer days.

Nail design with gel polish with floral pattern, photo

New nail designs with gel polish

Increasingly, nail design is performed using gel polish. This is explained by the fact that such a coating lasts on the nails for a very long time, and the range of color palettes is unlimited.

Girls who want to be in the center of fashion will be interested in learning about the latest trends in gel polish nail design (photo below the article).

Light lace on nails

Design with dark gel polish with a monogram pattern, photo

Nail design with gel polish with ethnic pattern, photo

Manicures with designs remain at the peak of popularity. Using a thin brush you can draw patterns and ornaments of any complexity. Among the many designs, the following stand out: cobwebs, playing cards, images of cats, floral motifs, berries, bows, ethnic elements.

All those who doubt their artistic abilities can use special stencils or stamps for designing nails with gel polish.

Nail design with gel polish: new photos

You can always diversify a boring manicure. There are many interesting offers on the modern market that will help you create a beautiful design without resorting to the services of a salon specialist. Our blog contains stylish nail design options that are suitable for all occasions. Choose what kind of gel nail polish design you want to make today: bright or, on the contrary, calm, daring or mischievous? Be sure to watch the video tutorials that will show you how to properly apply gel polishes at home.