**A non-abrasive approach to removing Gel Polish from nails**

There have been several articles on the internet published about the use of Gel Nail Polish, but I have seen very few advising how to go about removing it properly, so I thought when @rebeccaryan came back from holidays and needed her polish removed, it would be a good opportunity to demonstrate the steps we take at our Day Spa.

@rebeccaryan has had this gel polish on now for 18 days, and although it still looks pretty good other than some re-growth, she is now 'back to the grind' and requires it off for her profession.
The removal procedure is something that we include in the price of our gel manicures because we want to encourage proper removal techniques to keep the natural nail underneath healthy and in good repair. Customers often try to pick off the polish when it starts to chip or there is growth at the cuticle line. This is dangerous as the top layers of your natural nail are adhered to that polish, so it can tear those layers causing white marks or ridges in the nail. Therefore, even if it is possible for you to peel, chip or bite away at the nail polish, you should not!

The first step is to soak a gauze pad (I used gauze instead of cotton balls, so it is lint and fuzz free) in Pure Acetone. The nail polish remover generally sold in stores is Non-Acetone and is not strong enough for this procedure. Some salons soak the finger tips in a bowl of remover solution, but this unnecessarily exposes the whole tip of the finger to the alcohol which is very drying. This way, we are treating just the nail as directly as possible.

Secure the gauze by wrapping a piece of tin foil around the nail. There are other methods such as these red clips shown to hold the gauze pad on, but I do not find them as effective as tin foil because; they let air in and around which dries up the alcohol quicker than is needed for the polish to be saturated long enough. Also, everyone has differently sized fingers so a person with very small fingers will find all sizes slip off which is a hindrance. I find tin foil holds the moisture better and it then takes less waiting time for the polish to lift.

Now that all the fingers are wrapped, we wait. This usually takes 10-15 minutes so usually that is when I break out the jokes about how they look like ten mini baked potatoes ready for the barbeque…or I tell them they will now start picking up a few radio stations..you know...a little quip to pass the time never hurt anyone.

If you check in on the progress by removing one of the foils, you should notice the polish has lifted off the nail which means the remover has done its job and you are ready to move forward.

This step just takes very light scraping, I use a stainless-steel cuticle pusher for the job. If you must put any effort into this, they were not ready for the foils to be removed just yet.

I go over each nail with a buffer file just to smooth the surface gently and remove any bits that may have been left behind. This is where gel colour polish differs from acrylic application (can also go by other names for example Solar Gel which can cause confusion, so you want to be very specific about what you are booking before hand) I will just refer to it as artificial nails and that is where they (nail technicians) build up the nail or apply artificial tips or extensions to your natural nail. They use Dremel tools (a power sander if you will) to quickly remove nail product from the nail. This causes major damage because usually in doing this, several layers of the natural nail are removed as well. To grow a new nail can take between 3-6 months from cuticle to tip. The nail bed (skin under nail) can have an extremely long memory for damage so not only can this be tender and sore as it is filed too closely to the skin but if you are not gentle (which no power tool can really be) you risk potentially having the nail regrow with abnormalities and may never grow back normal again. Damages can include but are not limited to ridges, wavy mis-shaped nails, white spots, bruising, cracks, bleeding and infection. Therefore, we steer clear of artificial nails and only apply gel colour technology to the client’s natural nail as it does provide more durability than regular polish without all the brutal after effects of artificial applications.

Following the gentle buffing that I give the nail, I use another buffer that provides a shine to the nail. Since I am not redoing the entire manicure and just removing the polish I want customer to leave with healthy looking and feeling, nourished natural nails.

I have trimmed @rebeccaryan ‘s nails and smoothed the edges with a glass nail file as she had quite a bit of growth and needs her nails to be short for performing massage therapy. Had she requested a full manicure, we would be pushing back and trimming excess cuticles as well but this time we are just showing the removal procedure.

The next important step for leaving the client with nourished nails is to apply deep conditioning nail oil over and around the nail and cuticle area. Nail polish remover is alcohol based and can be very drying to the nail so to replace and replenish that moisture is a must. This oil is a blend of several wonderful oils and ingredients such as jojoba oil, sunflower oil, lavender oil and Vitamin E just to name a few but if you are wanting to add some extra moisture to your cuticles at home you could easily and still as effectively use anything you might have handy such as olive or coconut oil.

And there you have it. She would be out the door in approximately 20 minutes with the integrity of her natural nails fully intact!