Depend Gellack - 308

Today I'm going to share my experience with Depend Gellack system. You might already know this system, it's something in between nail polish and gel. You can apply it like a normal nail polish and then cure it under the UV lamp so it hardens. The wear should be longer than wearing just regular nail polish. I bought a starter kit, which includes before and after cleanser, base and top coats, UV lamp, small file and small woodstick. Colors had to be bought separately and I chose Nr. 308, bright orangy red with beautiful sparkles.

I painted my nails in the evening, so I didn't have good light and I took first photos the next day.

Day 2:

As you can see I have really short nails. I have to file them down completely every time before I paint them with nail polishes, because they are naturaly thin as paper and they bend like crazy if they grow longer. So I'm use to do that and I filed them down before wearing Gellack system for the first time too. I would like to share with you the information about my usual nail polish wear as well. If I file my nails like that I might get away with 3 days of wearing nail polish before it chips (the brand of the polish doesn't matter, my nails aren't that picky :P). Some polishes chip even before 24 hours pass from the application, so I'm pretty unsatisfied with that. This is one of the reasons I really wanted to try this Gellack system, so I would see how long it would last on my nails.

I also tried other permanent manicures before, like Gelish and Shellac. They were done at the professional nail salons at some special occaisons and they lasted about 7 to 9 days on my nails before they chipped. So I was hoping that Depend Gellack system would stay on at least for a week.

This is day 5, still looking good:

I want to mention that as the time passed, I didn't get bored with this color. As you might see it sometimes looks more red and sometimes more orange, so that was a big plus. Ofcourse sparkles are a must for me and I couldn't decide if they were gold or orange. Probably both. :) Nails were also very glossy the whole time and I liked that very much too.

Day 8:

So this is the time that I started to expect first chips, that's probably why I started to make more photos. My nails were obviously getting longer, but with the gel on top they seemed a bit harder. I didn't notice my nails were bending until that time.

Day 9:

Wow, now everything started to get very interesting to me. :) This was already an "all time record" so I was very happy about this fact. My nails were growing and there were still no chips.

Day 11:

At day 11 I started to see slight tip wear, especially on my thumbs, but nothing worse than that. But still, I didn't like that very much so at the end of this day I filed my nails for a tiny bit. I was thinking I might get some chips while doing that, so I tried to be as gentle as possible. I guess I was lucky. :)

Day 14:

Ok, this was already an extreme. I never thought I could ever have such visible nail growth without the color on my nails. :) It started to look a bit funny, but I was determined to wait until the first chip. Even if my nails would grow out completely, hehe! ;)) But I didn't need to "worry" about that for too long. :)

Day 16:

At this day I went swimming and look! There was a tiny tiny chip on my thumb nail after that! Well, I want to say that I was REALLY REALLY IMPRESSED with the wear time - it was twice as long as my previous permanent manicures!!! But I didn't leave it on for any longer, because I needed a change. ;)

I was kinda afraid about the removal process. I have checked some reviews on this system before and I have read that pure acetone works better than Depend's remover solution. So I tried with three different nail polish removers, all containing acetone (because I was unable to get pure acetone in Slovenia - does anyone know where I could get it?). The one that worked the best for me was Essence nail art nail polish remover ultra (in the purple bottle), but I still needed to file off the top shiny layer of gel and then keep my nails soaking in foil for more than 10 minutes. After I removed the foil, there was still a lot of residue on my nails that I removed with an orange woodstick. I feel that I have damaged my nails a bit by doing that, but after I used some cuticle oil the nails looked ok again.

My nails after removal of Depend Gellack system:

So I would say I had a very good experience with Depend Gellack system. I actually never thought it would last on for THAT long, so that's extremely great for me! :) But I noticed something very interesting too. When my nails were growing longer underneath the gel, they started to bend like they normaly do. But the gel bended with them and it didn't crack. Later I also tried and painted my nails with base coat, cured it, and then I used and cured a top coat. My nails looked like they have clear polish on and then I painted them with regular nail polish and finished with my regular top coat. And the polish still chipped in 3 days. :) But the gel underneath didn't! :) So now I have to try the third way, paint the regular polish in between the gel base and top coat and see "then what". ;)

Thank you for reading, I hope this post wasn't too long for you. But I can only recommend this permanent system. =))