Shellac, Gelish and Other Professional Gel Polish Products Update

It has been over 18 months since I did the post on What are Shellac and Gelish Nails? and in that time over 30,000 of you have viewed that post!  Wow, Wow, Wow!!!!

During that time an abundance of other professional brand gel polishes have come on the market some of which are listed here:  (but there are too many for me to list).

I only discuss the professional use products on this post here and not the use at home stuff as I dont believe that this type of products should be used by the untrained:

• Gelish from Nail Harmony
• Shellac from CND
• Colour Gloss from Artistic
• Polish Pro by NSI
• Axxium by OPI
• Mani-q by Young Nails
• GelColour by OPI
• GeleSSe by NCO London
• Colour Lock by Kirsty Meakin

etc, etc, etc ....................

My fingers got tired of finding the most popular ones as I could go on and on and on...............

A few points to mention (in my opinion) on some of the above:- Shellac is easiest to remove and very well known. Gelish and Artistic are popular due to celebrity endorsements and marketing. GeleSSe is unique as the colours can also be used with regular polish base and top coats to enable at home removal easier, plus I have found it is the easiest to do nail art with and has great colour pigment coverage.  Colour Lock by Kirsty Meakin can be used with no base coat or top coat, just the colour to give the speediest application.

So, although some are said to be the same product (Gelish and Artistic Colour Gloss as an example) and others said to be unique (Shellac from CND is the nearest to polish, where as many of the others are more Gel like) they all pretty much do a similar job in that they act as a semi permanent polish that can last 2 or 3 weeks.

All gel polishes are light cured (so are dry when the treatment is finished) and can be soaked off for removal.

Some will  suit other clients better than others as with my clients, one brand suits some people better than others and visa versa.   So in essence I am saying that there is no one brand that suits all - lots of people will tell you that 'this brand' or 'that brand' is better, but my experience has shown that in using many of these I still cannot stay which is best as each client is different as each of these products are.

What I will say is each brand will use clever marketing methods to convince you that theirs is the best.  Do your own research when deciding which one (or more) is for you, your salon and your clients.  

I always recommend that which ever you decide that you at least attend a workshop (or as a minimum have a very thorough conversation with the supplier) on how to get the most out of that product as each one has little differences that can make the treatment work for your clients or not.   The number of forum or facebook discussions I have seen where people have had problems and eventually worked out it was because the method they used was what they were taught as best for another brand.  A 'few tweaks'  later on how they should be applied or used and hey presto they were getting success!

Many of these now appear for sale to the public via ebay or similar 'non authorised' web sites.  All I can say is only buy your products from the authorised distributor!  It has been proven many times that the products you end up with are fake copies and not what they say on the tin!  Just not worth the grief and you will get no support from the suppliers if you go through that route!  I have learned many times the suppliers support is worth its weight in gold!!!!!

Talk to your clients to find out what they want from a treatment as this can help you decide which products to look at in more detail.  The amount of clients that have contacted me saying they want a shellac manicure but when questioned they want a semi permanent polish treatment and are open to discussion as to which is best for them!

Please feel free to contact me if you want more of my opinions on each brand (as I could go on for ever about each one) : - theresa.bloor@gmail.com  

Happy reading and I look forward to your questions. x x x

New Gel Paints

My My My!  What a neglected blog this is!

Anyhow - I have been a busy busy bee as of late with all those clients on the run up to Xmas and the usual Xmas illnesses I seem to end up with every year, but I am now back to the land of the living!

Well a few weeks ago I had the pleasure of attending a Gel Polish Design workshop on Birmingham held by the fantastic Sam Biddle.  We had the benefit of learning more about different designs that can be achieved with Gel Polish (those of you that know me well know what a big fan of gel polishes I am) and we also got to have a play with the new Gel Paints that Sam has recently launched.

Now, I am not an artist at all but the fab thing about these gel paints is you can play about with them for as lon as you want - and they wont dry(or cure as they are a gel) until they go into the UV or LED lamp.  The hardest thing to get used to is they are a paint and need to be used like a paint but they feel like a gel.  But once you get your head around that you have the best of both worlds!

Here is a picture of my first attempt at playing with them - more practice is needed but as a complete none artist I am quite chuffed with my efforts!   I certainly need to have a few lessons on light and shade thats for sure - if there was ever a time I wish I had paid more attention to the art classes as school it was now.

I am trying to get a clearer picture of this to show you but this gives you an idea for now.

I also loved some of the different design techniques we learned with gel polishes - the great thing I liked about these designs is they can be used quite easily on salon nails - without being too much of an artist!

I will do a separate update on the gel polish designs - hopefully a little bit quicker than this blog.

Bye bye for now. x x x