Review 2: Hands Down nail wraps

I will preface this by saying this may be a slightly unfair review as I had my nails shellacked almost a month and a half ago and the woman who did the job made it almost impossible to remove the damned thing.

Now, any of you who have gotten your nails done either professionally at a reputable salon (key word: reputable) or have DIY'd the gel polish in some fashion *know* that roughing up the nail is not necessary. Stripping the nail off all oils and dirt, however, is non negotionable.

Friend and I went to a little salon that while it was not completely 'cheap' it was still reasonably priced but still cheap in comparison to other salons. Now, I've had Shellac (tm) done before per the CND standards and while I *loved* that manicure, I was not fond of the price of $45 for just the manicure. Hell to the no. So I was thrilled to find gel polish at this particular, clean salon.

I asked her to not roughen up my nails because I've seen this done even for *nail polish*. I suppose it was the language barrier but she did it anyway. And I would not have been as upset over it if she'd used a regular nail file (which ladies at the other salon have done since my nails have a tendency to split and and peel so we sometimes have to file off a broken flake) she used a black block. If any of you have gotten your nails done with enhancements, you know that this black block is absolutely rough. Its horrible. It leaves grooves on the nails -- better for whatever type of enhancement to latch onto.

But my nails are thin enough as they are and I didn't want to do this step. They're also super dry. I honestly don't *need* this step at all. Gel manicures have  tendency to adhere to my nails super easy.

Ugh, it was brutal. I couldn't take off the damned thing completely.

A few weeks ago I bought my own lamp and gellish base and top coat. See, I love the way gel polish strengthens my nails and gives them that extra thickness they so need. (You can use a cuticule oil just fine with these and it hydrates the nail bed just fine). The intent was to do a gelly sandwich but I decided to just do the clear base and top coat then add regular polish on top with a simple top coat. I can remove the nail polish after a week and still have the base underneath to keep my nails strong.

I tried the foil method this time and it *WAS HORRIBLE*. I had to scrape, scrape, scrape the stupid thing off and I was still left with chunks of the stuff on the nail bed. I just added the clear stuff over it and called it a day.

So far, that base coat has lasted about two and a half weeks and the only place it started to chip was on the regrowth that had not been filed to death by the manicurist. Figures.

Foil method failed me again and I was experimenting with just teeny tiny bit of a cotton ball as I'd seen used at Reputable Salon (and Shellac's training videos). -- The other reason was that that was the last cotton ball I had.

So I went off to sally's, originally looking for the Orly Glitter and soak off gel envelopes but they were sold out. Instead, I picked up the HandsDown wraps.

They come with a thick cotton pad glued to self-adhering ace-bandage type material.  They're about the height of a standard bandaid.

The instructions say:

Saturate pad with acetone. Hold pad on nail. Wrap tightly around finger and press to seal end.

How badly could I fuck this up?

Pretty bad.

Wrap one: I overloaded the pad with acetone. Wrap would not adhere on itself. I tried to fix it by tying a clear elastic over it. (DAMN IT, I knew I forgot to pick up something!)

 I ended up cutting the circulation off my finger. 

Wrap two: couldn't get the 'end' to seal and that's because I misread the instructions and wanted to seal the actual tip to keep the acetone from evaporating at the tips.

Wrap three: finally got the damned placement right but I still wrapped it too tight and pinky started turning purple.

I managed to do okay with the other fingers until I got to the other hand and I just kept floundering by making them too loose.

Results:

The gel that had been applied to the regrowth that was not roughened up came off superbly easy, as expected. The rest had to be scraped off again, though it was removed a little easier. I managed to get more of the purple glitter off. Its still visible in one thumb and part of forefinger.

I had one hellufa time at the tips though. I suppose part of it is due to the heavy filing but the other part is due to the fact that the tips are open on this so I did notice that the acetone evaporated rather quickly on the overhang.

Good thing I went with two packs of  ten wraps each for about four bucks.

I give this product 4 out of five stars.

I am sure this would have been a total winner if the tip was encapsulated in the wrap.