shellac manicures

i first discovered shellac when my sister told me about it 9 months ago. (click here to read her first blog about it) she said that it was supposed to last 2 weeks minimum. i, the killer of manicures, was a bit skeptic about this. usually, when i get manicure, i swear to you something goes wrong within 3 days (max). and i end up having to cover it with some like color, hoping that no one would notice.

if i remember correctly, at the time we discovered this, my sister was playing softball at least 3 nights a week, bartending, and doing clinicals in nursing school. all that constant activity was definitely a good way to test this out.

i needed a manicure badly, so i decided to try it out. it just so happened that i was scheduled to work oracle's trade show the whole week. which meant i would be setting up the store, lifting boxes, unpacking, packing, helping customers at the register...if you ever worked in retail, think of the nights you had floor changes and had to rearrange the store, changing shelving and everything. then waking up bright and early to open the store, work the WHOLE day and close the store. well i did that everyday that week.

and what do you know...the shellac lasted the whole week and the week after that. since my first time i've been hooked. and i actually push my nail polish changes to about 3 weeks. well for about as long as i can handle seeing the color grown out. lol

i never wrote a blog about it b/c my sister already had. but i did get to take footage of the process today. coincidentally, my sister's mani/pedi appointment was a little after mine. so as i finished up my mani, she was coming over to get hers done. i decided that i would film the process b/c explaining is a bit lengthy and some people are just more visually inclined.

ps - shellac is also called soak off gel by opi.

and to those that are worried about the strength of their nails afterward, my nails are actually stronger now. my nails normally crack at the edges once they get to the length i actually like and now, my nails can grow even longer with no cracking.