Reviews
A quick mani, but lasting damage
A few months ago I was sent some products to try out from Nutra Nail; I received 1 box of Gel Perfect UV-Free Gel-Color in the shade Champagne, 1 box of Gel Perfect UV-Free Gel-Color in the shade Passion, 1 box of No-Mess Express Gel Perfect Remover - 5 pads included. I've heard of the gel nail color trend booming all over beauty blogs and YouTube videos, but I had never tried it myself. My natural nails are very strong, thick and grow really fast, and I never experience major issues with having to wait forever for polish to dry.
The PR rep sent me links to their How-To YouTube videos, I followed the instructions on how to apply the Gel Perfect, let me know begin with a warning - make sure you do this in a well ventilated area - as in, open all your doors and windows and blast your fan on turbo! The activator smells so strong that it was burning my nose and I was trying to lean as far back away from my nails as possible. It was excruciatingly hard to do this manicure, aside from the activator's horrid smell, I found it to be a hassle to work so quickly on each nail. I prefer to take my time when painting my nails so I can have nice, clean edges - but with this Gel Perfect process, you have to work pretty quickly and that resulted in horribly messy nails. Oh, and I couldn't just go back and clean up the over polished areas, this stuff is immune to simple nail polish remover. So, I sported messy nails for a few days.
Day 1, my nails were bumpy and uneven, most likely from not doing the process quick enough and not cleaning the brush after every other nail to avoid the goopy, stringy effect that the Gel Color quickly turns to. Day 2, my nails were in the same condition as day 1's application. Day 3, after taking my morning shower and doing the dishes, my nails began to chip. The interesting thing is that they chipped in the way a candy coating would chip off. It came off in thick, shell like patches. The chipped areas constantly snagged my clothes and hair. Day 4, the chipping turned into cracking and there were mini earthquake lines in my manicure, along with sharp edges from the manicure chipping away. I couldn't handle it anymore and I had to remove the manicure ASAP.
The removal process claims to cleanly take about 2 minutes. First off, the remover has a heavy scent as well, so do this in a WELL ventilated area. The soaked pad inside the packet is stiff, so when you are following the instructions and it says to rub your nails against the pad - you really need to take the pad out and aggressively rub and scrape the polish off your nails, one at a time. It took me about half an hour to get the polish off, completely off!
Based on my one and only experience in using this system, the application takes forever, the removal takes forever and I'd honestly rather just grab a bottle of polish, slap on two coats and use a fast dry - it's much easier to do, easier to breathe through and it lasts a lot longer.
Now, based on the effect it had on my nails, I HIGHLY suggest not using this system! I strongly dislike this product and I've been suffering for the last few months. My natural nails are strong, thick and grow very quickly. They don't chip, peel or crack. After I removed the Nutra Nail Gel Perfect manicure, my nails were so damaged that they reminded me of when you get gel nails removed at the salon and they leave behind that scaley, peely, unhealthy look. My nails were so brittle that I had to keep them filed down to the skin because any bit of nail that hung over or was "grown out" would crack and chip off from the slightest contact with any hard surfaces. I was extremely saddened to see my nails in such an unhealthy state. Luckily, the damaged nail portions eventually grew out, and now I can sport my long, strong nails again.
Originally I wasn't going to do this review or even share this experience because I know a lot of people like the Nutra Nail Gel Perfect manicures, and I didn't feel like hearing "oh, you probably did it wrong". But, after my bad experience, I reached out to the PR that sent these products to me asking for guidance on why this tore up my nails and if I had in fact done the process incorrectly. She mentioned never hearing of this issue before and said she would forward my concern to another person, unfortunately I never heard back from her.
Since I didn't hear anything back from PR, I decided to go ahead and share my experience. Personally, I wouldn't recommend this product to anyone. If you are in a rush and want a 5 minute mani, it's probably safer to just use those nail appliques that are so hot right now.