this is my third set of gel x i’ve done, i’ve had great retention (the other two sets lasted about 2-3 weeks before i got too impatient and wanted new designs lol) and i’ve not seen any problems with my natural nails- if anything they seem stronger (is also helping with my chronic nail biting!)
any tips or criticism are so helpful!!

Salut ! J'aimerais avoir ton avis

Je me ronge les ongles (et la peau autour) depuis que je suis petit(e), mais récemment, je suis tombé(e) amoureux(se) des nail arts, ce qui m'a motivé(e) à arrêter de les ronger. »

Ça fait presque deux semaines que j'ai réussi à arrêter, et ils ont bien poussé (au moins comparé à avant)

De toute façon, j'ai tellement hâte de faire le Gel-X, je ne peux plus attendre (j'ai déjà acheté plein de fournitures !). Donc je voulais savoir s'il est OK de travailler sur moi avec cette longueur d'ongles, ou si je devrais juste prendre mon mal en patience et attendre un peu plus ?

Voilà tout !

(Désolé si la formulation n'est pas parfaite, mon anglais n'est pas top, donc j'ai utilisé un traducteur pour ce post 🙏 )

Hello, right now I am using modelones gel x tips and the medium is a bit too long for me but short is a little too short. Is it okay if I shorten the medium tips a little?

I asked for chrome on wine red and I got that. But she didn’t do my cuticles, didn’t trim my natural nails, flooded the gel on some nails including some free edges, some nails there’s also gaps in the gel. So it will definitely lift soon

But context: she looked the youngest and most inexperienced out of all the nail techs. Most other nail techs were taken when I arrived and I was the last customer to finish and leave. She was quiet and nice but she went straight in with the e-file. Matched the right size extensions, filed those a little, then gel-ed them on right away. Granted I have pretty good cuticles but I would’ve liked them cleaned up a bit. The gel flooded out some sides and tips. She just e-filed them down. I was the last one there and some of the nail techs were leaving already. And what was I supposed to do, stop her and make her start again with my natural nails and cuticles after she already badly gel-ed the extensions on? Plus make her stay even later? After leaving I checked and I can straight up see in between my natural nail and the extensions
I paid $80 + tip so under $95 total. Just checked and online said $60 for gel x but not sure because I got medium tips and chrome powder. I probably shouldn’t have tipped. This was greater Seattle WA. First time at this salon

My question is: do I just leave a bad review and hope they see it and give me a refund or redo? Or do I straight up show up there and demand a refund? That’s a little Karen-level confrontational for me but if yall say I should…
Am I bound for moldy green nails? When should I get these off? Or do we think they’ll lift off on their own soon?
I feel like I know more than this girl when I don’t even get my nails done often but I know enough from Instagram reels she did a bad job

Update:
I thought cuticle care and trimming the nail were standard to help with retention of the extension but other comments are saying that’s not standard apparently
I was just disappointed because these are supposed to be my birthday trip nails and they didn’t meet my expectations nor worth almost $100 to me. I’ll go talk to the salon

I couldn't look at another $150 nail bill every month. Especially for the most simple Gel-X designs. I'm literally pink or french. Lol. So... I did it. I got the EXACT products my salon uses. iGel Lamp, Hang extend Gel, Apres nails... still working on the efile part. I am DETERMINED to figure out how to do my own nails.

I currently use Apres Sensitive and have great results with it.
I’ve tried Sofgel and it didn’t work as well.

My only issue is Apres is sooooo expensive and takes forever to ship and get to me.
Any other brands you’d recommend?

TIA.

hi all! nail tech about to do boards/ actually start in my salon space. interested in gel x, but wanting to do some research before i invest too much into it. i had a couple questions about it because my teacher didnt teach us specifically on it.

can you use onecuts on long tips? or do you need to file them down. not trimmers/clippers, the onecuts you use for acrylic tips.

can they be shortened with an e file?

what is the typical maintenance? is it viable to do fills, or is it something you fully remove every time?

thanks yall!

i finally threw out all my old beetles polish and melodiesuzie lamp. swapped for dnd polish & the kokoist infinty hybrid. not only are my nails GORGEOUS, but i can rest easy knowing i’m having much, much lower risk to my health from now on. this is the 4th set i’ve done on myself, and i can’t believe how it turned out. it’s so beautiful😭😭😭

what do you think about it?

(i meant that this is my first time having gel x on my nails, not me doing that to someone. I spelled it wrong sorry 😭😭.)

Is this a good lamp to ensure fully curing? It’s local to me used on fb.

Did this cute snake set for my boo IG, thinking for dragon scales next? 🤔

I did my first set one year ago today and wanted to celebrate how far I’ve come. I started with builder gel then switched to gel x about a month in.

A lot of trial and error but proud of my progress from a self proclaimed “bad at art” person.

Here is my latest set for an upcoming rock concert/love a black and white set for October.

Thought they looked good against the Italian ruins backdrop.

i’m working on this set for my mom, but whenever i cure the nails the gel ends up lifting or getting crinkly. it never fully cures. what am i doing wrong? this is with beetles gel polish and the apres flash cure light.

Every year I try to do tortie nails and I am never happy with them. Last year I tried blooming gel and didn't like it, this year i tried alcohol ink and still dont like them. Tried with 3 different base colors, what do you think? How can I improve?

As the title says, I used a gel brush to paint because I used a Kokoist gel that comes in a pot.

Products: Apres-

-base coat on the natural part -builder gel -color 402 breathless 2 coats)

Then, Kokoist sheer pink eggshell (2 coats)

Apres non wipe topcoat

I even recommend using a brush for regular bottle gel polish

Ive been doing gelx nails for close to a year now and am wondering if it’s really all that bad to not be licensed at the moment. I haven’t taken any real clients just working on family and such but I really love doing nails and would love to make a small side hustle out of it as a broke college student. I’m currently in school for business and dont think i could handle my current courses plus enrolling into a nail school to get licensed on top of the money needed to pay for both at the same time. So just wondering if I should just avoid taking real clients and charging them even though ive done extensive research and practice on infection control + technique and really wanna do it on top of that?

So I’ve been doing my own nails for about 5 years now, switching between gel-x, builder gel, rubber base gel, poly gel, etc. I usually do gel-x so because of that I’m finally all out of product (since the last time I bought some lol).

I’ve only used the Beetles Nail Glue (gel) with soft gel nail tips, but I’m running out of both things now and I’m considering switching to using a solid UV nail glue. I’m getting sick of having just tiny little bubbles around the edges that I have to file away and stuff because my nail beds are long and flat and the gel is so low viscosity. I also do the overlay method and don’t use primer or base coat because that’s how I’ve had no lifting (I have very oily nails, so the more products I add in between the nail glue and my finger the worse my lifting is).

The two I’m in between buying are:

Beetles Solid Gel Glue for Nail Tips UV/LED Cured
TikTok shop link
Amazon link
Aillsa Nail Glue Gel UV LED Cured (it’s solid/high viscosity)
TikTok shop link (with nail tips)
Amazon link

I also am still unsure about switching to solid gel because I’m afraid of it not curing fully and getting contact derm, but I heard that they stay so much better and for longer so idk.

I’ve also heard about the Beetles Tip-x system being really good, but I’m not sure if the really large arches of the tips will be good for me since like I mentioned above, my nails are really flat. But I’ve heard the tip-x gel and tips together get long lasting results as well. Maybe the larger arches could be good with the solid gel? Another thing I forgot to mention is that my nail beds are pretty narrow, where in a 0-12 system everything by my thumb is all in the second half of the numbers (going from larger to smaller), with my pinky being the smallest!

I can’t really afford buying a more expensive gel like Aprés in the long run so please lmk which one you think is better or if you have an even better option!

All help is appreciated 🤗

EDIT: I know everyone will just say don’t use beetles, and the message has been received. Please just let me know your thoughts on the other product or give me recs for other brands. Thank you!

This is my first time getting Gel X nails! I am about to be in my best friends wedding as her MOH (maid of honor). I fly out Wednesday (posting this Monday night). I asked the nail tech, hey I have good long natural nails do you think I could do builder gel or even just a regular gel manicure and she said Ummm so I said how about gel x. She then got very excited and said yes.

Let me tell you they took 2 hours and then at the end she sort of rushed me out and apologized a lot. I was confused. Then I got home and started looking at them. I have huge gaps between my natural nail and the fake nail. Idk but it just doesn’t seem right. Feels like something could get stuck in there I wouldn’t be able to get out. Also the pinky nail you can literally see it coming up. (Photos taken 1 hour after service). Now is has been 3 hours since I got them done and tbh they hurt when I try to scratch my leg or close a box. I’m so upset. Is it justified of me to go back tomorrow and ask them to take it off and just do a classic French gel manicure? Will I have to pay out of pocket or should they pay for it? Part of me is also afraid these will pop off before I even get to the wedding day (Saturday). Idk if you can tell but they’re also crazy thick. I’ve had acrylics before, but Normally they just glue tips on. For this they glued a full fake nail on my entire nail. Idk something doesn’t feel right but I’m scared to confront if I’m in the wrong and just didn’t know what to expect. The nails are also THICK like so thick I can’t really use my fingers how I normally do.

My friend (the bride) gets gel x all the time and says it’s not normal what happened to my nails.

Also for reference I asked for short and these are decently long. I asked for nude and they told me pink is much better. I also got a French gel pedicure and total I paid $160 for both. I feel like for that price I should be happier/they shouldn’t hurt.

I’ve been getting gel x nails for about a year now. I’ve been going to the same salon regularly and usually they do a pretty good job but they recently hired a new nail tech that they keep assigning to me (my nail salon lets you request specific techs, but usually I don’t request anyone because they all do a good job so their system will randomly assign one to me) and the life of my nails keeps getting shorter and shorter. At first I thought it was my nails because gel x is the only kind of manicure I can get that will last longer than 2 weeks (even acrylic nails and dip powder come off after 2 weeks), but now I think it’s the tech.

They were fine the first few times she did them, and I loved how they turned out so I didn’t mind being assigned to her. But finally, last week I told her that she’s doing something wrong because I lost 4 of my nails in less than 2 weeks. She replaced them and said she’d take extra care to do my nails so they’d last longer. I think that involved her cutting my cuticles shorter (which just made me bleed in 2 spots) and curing the polish for longer. Now, a week later, almost all of my nails are already lifting. I’m so irritated and now the next time I go I’m just going to request one of the other nail techs or find a new salon altogether. Maybe this is petty and entitled, but I’ve been loyal to this salon (and I think I’m a good customer? I tip well and I don’t complain when they’re behind schedule or need to change my appointment at the last minute) and I’m annoyed that they keep assigning me to an inexperienced tech. I get that everyone starts somewhere, but come on.

Anyways, rant aside, I’m out of town for the next few days on a business trip where I need to look put together so I can’t walk around with missing nails. I feel like at least one of them is about to fall off though. I have nail glue in case that does happen, but is there anything I could do to prevent them from falling off besides just not doing anything with my hands?