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Last night I had my nails “fancy” done for the first time.  I’ve had a handful of manicures in my life, but it only takes a few $20 manicures chipping within 24 hours for a girl to realize it’s a waste of money.  Eeevery now and then I’ll have a french done for something special (aka right after we got engaged and I was showing off my ring to anyone who blinked in my direction), but I really try to avoid wasting the money in general nowadays.  That being said, I really want to have my nails done for the wedding and maybe even have them last -gasp- all the way through our honeymoon without chipping!  In comes the idea of “fancy” nails (a term I created for the purpose of this blog because I didn’t know how else to describe it) and since I didn’t want to just wing it when I have my nails done for the wedding, I decided it was time to start doing some trial runs to see what I like/dislike so I have a plan for September (which P.S. today is 99 daysss!!!!).

So last night I went to my new favorite salon (which I have to give a shout out to E. for opening my eyes to this little gem) and basically said “I want something simple using my natural nails that will last 3-4 weeks.”  The guy suggested liquid gels.  I had heard of “gels” but couldn’t really get a straight definition on what is what from my attempt at internet research, so I decided the salon would know best.  He told me powder gel would do way more damage to my original nail, and liquid gels would give a similar look without damaging my original nail and they would feel pretty natural.

Well three hours later (which included my awesome pedicure), I now have fancy nails!  I couldn’t tell you exactly what the guy did – I think there were probably ten different steps, but basically he buffed down my nails, put on an acrylic base, put on two layers of the liquid gel, then buffed/filed that down, then did more gel (or maybe just a base coat?), then he did the white for the french, then a top coat of some sort and lots of filing in between all of those steps.  So now my nails basically have a thick layer of gel, with a french manicure underneath, so I can leave them the way they are for the “natural” look, or I can actually paint over them a solid color if I want, and then even remove that color and the french manicure will still remain underneath, which I thought was pretty cool (whew, sorry for the run-on).

I’d say all-in-all I’m pretty happy with the results.  They feel very natural and I’m already used to them, even with typing and whatnot, and since it’s just my natural nail with no extra fake length added, they don’t seem outrageously out of place on me.  My one comment is I usually get square tips, just because they normally don’t ask and just give me square tips, so this time I asked for round tips and I think in the future I’ll get square tips.  The round tips look good and I don’t mind them, I just think I prefer the square tip look better, but that’s all part of the trial run to figure out likes and dislikes, so I guess I can say this trial run was a great success!