How To Remove Gel Nails At Home [D.I.Y]

I used to be so good at posting at least a ‘Manicure of the Week’ post on here if I didn’t have time to post anything else… but recently I haven’t even been able to do that, unfortunately. BUT I am back, and for this week I have something a little different to talk about... a gel manicure!

I had the pleasure of getting my nails done with my friends on a weekend a while back. (mine is the one in red) Even though I have mentioned the use of gel-like nail polish before, I’ve never actually got it done in a salon with the fancy LED light and so on.

Here is the final product up close, I decided to get a bit fancy and make the ring finger different with a little embellishment.

Now, they are supposed to last about two weeks or longer without chipping, and when it’s time to remove them you should go to a salon. However, I am rather impatient, and so after a week and a half, even though it didn’t chip at all I wanted to remove them.

I managed to figure out a way to do so at home, with a slight modification, so I thought I’d share!

What You’ll Need:

-      Cotton Balls (10 or more)

-       Nail Polish Remover – Acetone, 10%

-       Cuticle Pusher

-       Ziploc Bags (you are originally supposed to use aluminum foil, but since I didn’t have that, I attempted to do so with plastic bags and it worked, but f you have aluminum foil it’ll be better)

-       A small bowl or container

-       Scotch Tape

First, place the cotton balls into the small container or bowl. Then pour the nail polish until they are submerged. Leave them to soak for a bit. Meanwhile, cut the ends of the Ziploc bags into triangle shaped pieces. Prepare several long strips of the scotch tape and let them hang off the edge of the table so they will be easy to grab. 

Now take one of the soaked cotton balls and place it on one of the fingers (I suggest starting with the pinky) Then slide the finger with the cotton ball on top into the Ziploc bag end that was cut before and tighten the plastic over the finger (or aluminum foil if that’s what you have). Grab a piece of the tape and seal the finger with the cotton ball and acetone in the bag.

It should look like so:

Afterwards repeat this process for all the fingers so that your final product looks like the image below. Leave it on for 20-30 mins. The longer the better. (I suggest watching an episode of a TV show to pass the time efficiently :D)

When the time comes to remove them carefully remove the tape and slide fingers out of bag.  Now comes the tedious and difficult part, using the cuticle pusher begin scraping off the nail polish which should have become loose and soggy form being soaked in the acetone for so long.

The final product should be like this. There may be some remaining bits, but the majority should be removed. :)

Afterwards place some cuticle oil or Vaseline on your fingers to moisturize them! You can then paint your nails again if you want or just leave them bare.

I re-painted mine with OPI’s Peel Me A Gobi Grape (I think… the label with the name fell off so I’m trying to remember the name off of memory)

Hope this helped!

Best of luck & Take care 

xoxo SiSi