Gelish... finally!

I have been excited about Gelish for some time, despite not having used it until a couple of days ago. Lots of lovely colours and a mani that lasts three weeks without chipping, which you can do nail art on besides? How can you go wrong? I finally got my own basic Gelish supplies, and I'm just as thrilled with the whole thing as I thought I'd be. Unfortunately the only retailer I could find for Gelish locally (Sally) has a very small selection... only Mini's and not many colours so I'm on the hunt for another distributer or reputable mail order source that delivers to Canada. Shearup.com looks promising but I'm wary because I've heard there are knock off Gelish products going around and of course I want to be sure to get the real thing. I'm going to give Nail Harmony a call tomorrow and see if they can point me in the right direction.

I've never been very good for reading instructions, (I'm impatient), so I plunged right in and did it up and it turned out not quite perfect because of it. I had skipped the ph bond and the cleanser at the end and put the layers on too thickly so it turned out a little sticky-tacky. I wasn't up to doing it all over right then so I put a top coat of regular polish (Seche Vite) to deal with the tackiness and plan to redo them next week. That seems to be a good temprairy fix. At least I'm quite sure I know what I did wrong. I'm going to practice on my Mom tonight. I plan to take mine off to do the nail art for the Rotterdam Contest Giveaway and then I'll do another Gelish colour after that.

As an aside the contest seems to be going well. Thanks to all who have entered and visited for the first time from the entry links. Please keep the entries coming. The more successful this contest is the more likely I'll be to do more in the future. My traffic is up which I'm pleased with and I like the interaction with readers and the whole idea of giveaways. It's fun to share favourite products.

So back to Gelish, I am wearing Bella's Vampire, which I wasn't too excited about to begin with. Like I said Sally was short on colour selection. However, I like it much more than I thought I would. It reminds me a bit of Chanel's Vamp from way back in the late 90's, that kind of dark, dark dried blood colour that everyone was wild about and there were wait lists for all over. I am probably one of the only women in existence who just can't stand Twilight (sorry to you fans) so I pretend the name is a reference to Bela Legosi from Dracula, rather than Twilight's Bella, despite the spelling making it rather obvious this is not so. From the pictures it looks black but really it has a purple-red tinge.

The uv light I got is the Gelish Mini Pro 45. It was around $80.00 Canadian dollars and considering you can pay over $500.00 for a large uv light I think it was a great deal. I've read very good reviews on this little light. I got a 2 year warranty on it for an extra $8 and I think curing the thumbs separately and waiting about 15 more seconds per cure than with the larger models is a small price to pay to save over $400! Plus I like that it is tiny, light and portable. It's sleek and cute and if I do end up working mobily, (I'm thinking renting a chair at a salon may make my life easier though I haven't decided for sure), it will be nice to have small, easily portable equipment. Here's my gear. For colours I have Bela's Vampire, Good Gossip and Exhale so far, but can't wait to stock up on others.

On another note my nail tech course is going well. It's been all theory so far which I'm doing well in but I'm anxious to get to the practical part and start doing things. I'll take pics of what I learn and post it here. Should be good times. I plan to give my blog url to my clasmates so here's a shout out to any of my Concepts ladies who've made their way here. He-ey! :)