Sally Hansen Salon Effects Nail Strips

Today I wanted to do a small experiment.

I love the ease of the Sally Hansen Salon Effects nail strips, but I wish they'd last longer. So I thought to try putting a top coat of Gelish Top It Off and see how they do.

The whole thing behind gel on plain nail polish is that the polish needs to be fully dried for around 24 hours for the gel top coat to be effective.  But when you use nail strips.... They pretty much are dried. So I thought.... Why not!

So I prepped my nails:

Pushed back cuticles 

Shaped & buffed away the shine

Wiped them with alcohol to get rid off any dust and oil 

Stuck the strips on 

Smooth out the bubbles and filed the excess off

Applied a thin coat of top it off and cure for 30 seconds

**I have a geluv led battery operated lamp

I also want to share that I'd seen videos on YouTube on how to use 1 pack for all 10 nails (each box come with 2 sealed packs of 8 nail strips).  So if you can pull it off correctly you get 2 manicures for around $10 or less!! If you see the top right picture above I show how I used 8 stickers to fit all 10 nails. It's a little trickier.  I use a tweezers to peel the plastic layer off.  I did this versus peeling everything off and then cutting it, that way I didn't want to chance distorting the design.

As you can see I have medium length nails I say any longer you won't be able to half the stickers to stretch the pack out. 

10 days of wear

After 10 days you can see the growth of my nails but the stickers have stayed on well. No chips just some wear at the very tips of my nails.  I could have worn these for longer but the grow out bothered me so I took them off.

To remove these I simply buffed the gel layer similar to removing other gel soak-offs. Then wrapped in acetone on cotton and foil, waited about 10 minutes and everything wiped off easily.  I feel my nails are a lot healthier using the nail strips/gel versus regular gel manicures. I really hate scrapping off the remainder polish that the acetone doesn't soak off with regular gels.

I really like this type of manicure! I'm definitely going to be trying out more designs/colors.