Manicure Monday: Gray Day

 Today was just another manic Monday in the life of Kelly Moran, but at least my mani was on point.
There's just something about going into work Monday morning with a fresh manicure that makes the day a little more tolerable. Is that weird? I mean, I'm not nail art expert, but if I can save money by doing salon quality manicures at home...hey, I'm a happy camper. My SensatioNail gel kit saves me so much money and time by allowing me to change up my nail art whenever I want in under 20 minutes. That's painted, designed and dried in under 20 minutes. At the salon, it took 20 minutes just to file and buff my nails. What I especially love is the drying time. Literally 60 seconds under the curing light and my nails are dry. I don't have to worry about smudges or chips and can go about my day.

My mani of the week features colors Gray Day and White Lily. I also tried out the new nail shields. You apply them to your natural nail before applying the polish. If you've ever used nail polish strips, it's pretty much the same thing. Except these strips are clear and act as a protective barrier between your natural nail and the gel polish. When you go to soak off the polish, this nail shield will go just like it's name says and shield your nail from thinning, cracking, or breaking from the acetone.

Make sure you smoothe the nail shield out so there are no creases or bubbles. This will only create bumps on your nail bed when applying your polish. It took me about 10 minutes to apply all 10 nail shields because I wanted to make sure they were smoothed out and trimmed so as to not hang off my nail bed. If you have trouble finding a nail shield to fit your nail bed, I suggest going with a size smaller. The shield is not visible once the polish is applied and will work just the same. A larger size that hangs off your nail bed and onto your skin will be more difficult to trim and just make the final product look sloppy.


Learn More & Download Instructions Here

After applying the nail shield, you do not need to cure them under the LED light. And you also don't have to apply a base coat of the clear gel. The nail shield acts just as that. Directly over the nail shield I applied 2 thin layers of Gray Day as the base. Each layer cured separately. Once cured under the LED light, I added the design.

 

 

 I'm not very good at free handing designs, so I used my sister's nail stamping kit that's been sitting in the closet. It's one of those as seen on TV things. I don't recommend this to anyone though (lol). It literally took me half an hour to get the thing to actually stamp the design I wanted on the sponge. Needless to say, I finally got it to work, didn't come out as clean as I would have liked, but it looks kind of retro, so I kept it. I only used one coat of the White Lily to do this design and let cure under the LED light.

Then I used my topcoat to seal the design in. An important tip when painting your nails with the SensatioNail gel polish is to paint your nail bed vertically (up and down) and then seal the coat in by painting across the nail tip horizontally. This helps to prevent chipping and will protect your nails for up to 2 weeks.

Want your own SensatioNail kit? Enter my giveaway going on now through March 30th on my Instagram page. Follow me - @kellyrmoran

Gray Day

White Lily