GELISH SOFT GEL TIPS: THE BEGINNERS’ GUIDE

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Gelish soft gel tips were commercially available in late 2020. It is probably the fastest nail enhancement system that you can do at home.

What are Gelish soft gel tips?

Gelish soft gel tips are a quick way to add lengths to natural nails and these soft gel full cover nail tips are attached to the natural nails by gel base coat and so they have superior adhesive strength. In other words, they are soft gel press on nails.

Unlike the regular nail tips used in other nail extension applications which only attach to the natural nails at the free edges, these soft-gel nail tips fully cover the entire surface of the nail beds. Therefore, these soft gel full cover nail tips can be also be considered as soft gel press on nail tips.

A soft gel nail tip kit includes:

One Soft Gel Basix Kit: a soft gel full cover nail tip kit. In this kit, you will find:

pH bond
Tip primer
Soft gel tip adhesive
Nourish cuticle oil
2 fl. Oz of nail cleanser
2 fl. Oz of Artificial Nail Remover
1 mini wooden file
1 orangewood stick
1 plastic pusher
Prep tabs
One LED Touch Light: this is the heart of Gelish soft gel nail tip. This flexible arm LED Gelish soft gel lamp is needed to flash cure the soft gel tip adhesive which is essentially a gel base coat.
One box of 550 soft gel nail extension tips: there are 50 soft nail tips for each of the normal 10 sizes which are from 0 (biggest) to 1 (smallest), and an additional 50 tips for a larger size than 0, double zero, 00. The largest size 00 is for the big thumbs that 0 will be too small to fit. They are full cover nail tips which mean they are designed to cover the whole surfaces of natural nails.

These Gelish soft gel nail tips come in different sizes and lengths.

Medium or long Coffin shape
Medium or Long Stiletto shape

You can only get one in each soft gel kit, not all.

These Soft Gel nail tips are flexible so they can take on the shapes and curves of natural nails. This makes these tips adhere better. This flexibility also prevents any gaps between these tips and the nails from becoming too big so they are virtually snag-free.

Another advantage of these flexible soft tips is they are resistant to breakage.

These full cover soft gel tips also come pre-shaped so they cut down on shaping time.

How long do soft gel tips last?

Since soft gel tips are put on nails using the strong adhesive bond of a gel base coat, the tips can last from 3 to 4 weeks, according to Gelish.

How to apply soft gel nail tips: step by step at home

How do you apply soft gel nail tips at home? If you have done gel polish and press-on-nails before, then applying Gelish soft gel tips is just the combination of the two. Simply put, you will brush on a coat of gel base coat and cure it. Next, you will put a soft gel nail tip over the base coat and cure. This soft gel nail tip will adhere to the natural nail after the gel base coat is cured.

For the soft gel tips to last as they should, both nail surface preparation and applying the gel tips should be carried out correctly. The application of Gelish soft gel tips is explained step by step in the section.

If you already know how to do a gel manicure, these steps are self-explanatory. For those who are doing for the first time, follow these steps closely and you will have a perfect set of nails that lasts.

Nail prep:

Sanitize your hands and nails.
Push back overgrown cuticles and remove dry cuticles on the nail with a cuticle pusher.
Trim your nails short with a pair of nail clippers and shape them with a nail file. Smooth out the nail shape with a buffer.
Gently remove the shine using a fine nail file or a buffer block.
Clean away all the dust on the nail surface using your nail cleanser. Let dry.
Apply dehydrator/pH balanced solution. Let dry.
Now is the time to find nail tips that would fit on all ten of your nails. Make sure the tips will cover both sides of each nail. You can press a nail tip on your nail and to see if it covers both sides.
Brush a thin coat of tip primer to the underside of these ten nails. Lay them curved up on the table so you can easily pick them up later.
Brush the same tip primer to all 10 nails.

Applying soft gel nail tips:

Put a very small bead of the Gelish soft tip gel adhesive on the underside of the soft gel tip where it will come into contact with your nails. Scrape your brush against the round edge. Depending on each nail, you would use more of this gel adhesive or less. Your little finger will need the least and your thumb will need the most amount.
Now attach the soft gel tip to the nail. You would start by placing the round edge of the tip next to your cuticle line so that it will be close but does not touch the cuticle.
Lightly press down the tip starting from the cuticle to the free edge to push out the air between your nail and the tip. You will be able to tell if you have enough adhesive or not. If it is too little, add a very tiny bead. If it is too much, remove some by scraping the excess off with a clean cuticle pusher of a small spatula.
You can do this because the adhesive will not dry or set without being exposed to UV light.
Now you can start to press the tip down harder.
Visually check whether the adhesive spreads uniformly on the whole nail surface.
When you are happy with the seal, keeping pressing the nail tip down on the nail and bring it to the UV light from a tough LED light and flash cure for 5 seconds.
Do this for all five nails and cure them with a regular UV nail lamp for 60 seconds.
Repeat this for the nails on the other hand.

Putting finishing touches:

Remove all the excess adhesive on cuticles and both sides of each nail if there is any.
Using a fine nail file lightly roughen up the nail tip surface using a buffer so the color polish or gel topcoat will stick on better.
Clean all dust with cleanser or alcohol
You can put on either regular or gel nail polish on these soft gel tip full sets. However, do remember that if you put gel polish on, you will have to remove this gel polish the way you normally do, be it wrapping, soaking, or using nail clips.

Here is the video showing you how you can do Gelish soft gel tips at home.

How long does soft gel last?

With the strong adhesive strength of the gel base coat, the soft gel tips can last from 2 to 4 weeks with normal everyday wear.

However, if you are hard on your hands and nails, expect they will not last that long.

How to take off Gelish soft gel tips

First, you will cut all the soft gel tips using a nail cutter or a nail clipper. Do not cut into your nails if you want to keep them.

If you have gel polish on, you will have to remove gel polish first. If you are not familiar with how to take gel polish off your nails. Here is how you would do:
Remove the gel top coat using a medium-coarse (100 grit) nail file. After this, you have a choice:
Soaking all fingernails in an acetone bowl for 15 minutes.
Wrapping each fingernail in acetone using aluminum foil for 15 minutes.
Pressing acetone-soaked cotton balls to each nail using nail clips for 15 minutes.
After 15 minutes, you can remove all the dissolved gel tips and gel base coat. If there are some still on your nails, soak or wrap them a little longer until they completely come off your nails.

Do the final touch-up so your nails will be ready for the next nail enhancement application.

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Do soft gel tips ruin your nails?

Since soft gel tips attach to the nail beds by using a super-strong adhesive strength of a gel base coat, minimal nail damage is avoided.

Also, any nail enhancement product will damage the nails one way or another when it is removed either by users’ carelessness or improper procedures. However, with the quick and easy soaking-in-acetone method, Gelish soft gel tips prevent any damage to the nails when they are taken off.

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Are Gelish soft gel tips good for nails

Pros:

Gelish soft gel nail tips are a great product for people who want to extend their nails at home without having a lot of nail skills or worrying about their new nail tips that will pop off too soon.
Compare to a set of regular press-on nails that uses regular adhesive, soft gel nail tips are not faster, however, their durability and resistance to breakage or chipping make it a better choice. So it is safe to say that it is a fast, more durable DIY full set at home.
For a person who likes press-on nails, soft gel tips can stay on the nails much longer than a typical one-week long press-on nail set. So they are press-on nail lovers’ dream: fast DIY set of nails at home that lasts.

Cons:

The sizes of these soft gel nail tips are for most people with average-sized nail beds. If your nail beds are considered larger or longer than normal, these tips might not fit well and many of them might not be usable at all.
There is only one set of 550 soft nail tips in one basic kit, and other shapes and lengths are not available to the public, only licensed nail professionals can purchase them.

So make sure that you use these soft gel nail tips for actual nail work, not on the practice until Gelish makes them available to the public.

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ARE GELISH SOFT GEL TIPS WORTH IT?

Gelish is having a special introductory price of $179.95 for a complete soft gel tip kit.

It is a high cost for someone who wants to try it out. However, when you break it down on cost per nail set, it is very affordable.

The kit comes with 550 soft nail tips. Normally, you have ten fingers so each time you only need 10 tips. Assuming you will waste about 10% of them which is 55 nail tips. You have 495 nail tips left for actual uses. If you divide 495 tips by 10 fingers, you will have about 49 applications. Now divide $179.95 by 49 nail sets, you will get $3.67 per set which is comparable to a set of press-on nails.

A high quality soft gel nail tips that last up to four weeks for the price of a press on nail set that you can easily do it yourself at home for less than 30 minutes with minimal nail skills. These Gelish soft gel nail tip kit should be in every nail lovers’ collection at home.

You normally do your nails every three weeks, you would have to do them about 17.33 times a year (52 weeks divided by 3). With 49 available sets, they will last close to 3 years (49 divided by 17.33 equals 2.83).

Purchase one of these soft gel nail tip kit and you are good for three years. Think of all the money you will save if you were to pay for your nails at a nail salon in those three years.

I think it is a bargain.

If the price $179.95 is prevents you from getting it, here is my suggestion.

You can ask your friends, your sisters or even your mom to share with your the initial cost and everybody can share this new product. Moreover, having more people doing nails are better than one person do it alone. You will have more fun and other people can have you doing things that your non dominant hand could not do well and this product is very beginners’ friendly.

You do not have to put up a lot of of money in the beginning and everybody in your nail circle who loves having nails done is happy. It is a win-win deal.

You can even charge a nominal price of $10 a nail set. Since this soft gel nail tips are so simple to apply, you would make almost two times what it costs in less than 30 minutes.

If you do this, you will gain valuable experience also.

In short, these soft gel nail tips are as easy to apply as press-on nails but last as long as a gel product.

The best part is they come off easily by soaking in acetone for 15 minutes so they do not ruin your natural nails at all.

Try them out and I think these soft gel nail tips will be your favorite nail kit over the others.

Plus, you will be a soft gel nail tip expert before long.

Conclusion:

Gelish soft gel nail tip kit is a great DIY nail enhancement product. It is easy to apply, application time is short, and last up to 4 weeks. You can apply a fastest full set at home in less than 30 minutes.

To me, these full cover soft gel nails, are press-on nail lovers dream.

These great soft gel tips are available on Amazon. The company only have limited quantity for these kits, so get yours now before these special introductory offers are gone.

Cheap soft gel tip kits

If you want to give these tips a try but do not want to spend a lot of money, you can buy a much less expensive brand. Check out this article Soft Gel Tips – What You Need To Buy. You can buy a complete kit for under $20.00.

Have fun with your nails.

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