Newbie gel polish nail art

Today's post is all about my gel nails for my trip tomorrow. 

I always do gels for trips away and long weekends so that my nails are protected and there is no chipage. However, I didn't want just a plain colour because us nail addicts like to make it a little more complicated than that! 

For this mani I used; ibd - base, Indie Oasis & top coat. And the red colour was Gelish - Plum and done. 

You may already know that I love ibd's products so if you want to read my thoughts have a look at my previous blog posts about their products. 

I borrowed Gelish from a friend because I had such a bad experience with my Sensationail red and wanted a deep red for this design.

I really liked this brand - no shrinkage and had a great finish. However, because I was putting it over another colour it took quick and many applications to get good coverage. But other than that I really liked the brand! They have a great range of colours too. 

This mani was definitely a 'learn from my mistakes' kind. 

At first I was trying to create this with striping tape (as I would with normal polish). I did a whole hand of this and wasn't loving it at all, it was way too messy for my liking.

For my next hand (the one in this picture) (minus the pinkie finger) I did free hand. This worked so much better! I wish I had done this on my right hand as I'm left handed so would have been much neater! 

But now I know - and I know that free hand is so easy creating a great gel nail designs. 

I also used cuter cuticles - cutie guard to ensure any gel polish didn't cure on my cuticles. This worked so well because there is nothing worse than gel on cuticles that you can't get off! 

This mani was a great learning experience and I can't wait to try other gel nail art with other colours! 

I am off to Prague really early in the morning and won't be blogging for a few days but I will be on Instagram still so you can keep up on @nailstori. 

Thanks for reading... Have a great weekend.

xox

IBD always

Over the Christmas holidays I've had the pleasure of doing many nails and thought I would share my thoughts of recent polishes I've used. 

After attending the ibd blogger event in October they kindly gave me a gel starter kit and I've been practicing ever since. I've really got into using gels and learning all I can about them.

Using; ibd Peach Blossom and Paint Riot over top.

I impatiently wanted a deep red colour for the holidays so bought a cheap SensatioNail one from Boots. I was so disappointed! The colour shrank when applying and there was lots of unnecessary clean up to be done. 

This is when I realised that like all polish but particularly gels - product quality really matters! 

It became even more clear how great the quality of ibd gel is. The application is really smooth with absolutely no shrinkage. When I had heard that gels can 'shrink' I didn't really understand what this was because ibd Just gel never did this. I now have a very good understanding of it! Just gel lasts as gel polish should and is such an easy process to remove.

Gel polishes are great in the winter months for nail growth as nails are weaker and the gels provide a sort of protective layer, ibd has really helped my nails through December!

Such a fab and yet affordable product - after trying other products I wouldn't compromise the quality of ibd. 

I have already added more ibd just gel polishes to my birthday list!

Much nail love to be had. 

xox 

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