[Ellie's Blog] Bio Sculpture Gel #2025 Vibrant Violet

Last week, I tried soak-off gel nail colour for the first time, because I am a victim of expiring Groupons. But that’s a different rant.

The salon used Bio Sculpture Gel, which was first-to-market, but other brands have emerged since then such as CalGel and OPI’s Axxium. The entire manicure took 75 minutes, and features a small jar of gel polish (kind of like really thick nail polish) applied with a brush. There was a base coat, two layers of polish, and a top coat, each layer of which stayed wet until cured under a UV light. A more detailed breakdown of what I liked and didn’t like after the jump.

 

What I liked:

• Durable: A week later, there is no noticeable wear from either end of the nail. I was told it lasts 3 -  4 weeks, but we will see. Will update with wear progress.
• Less Harmful: Soak-off gels can be applied over your natural nails and don’t require drilling or filing like traditional gels. Removal is done by soaking in acetone, which is probably not good for you, but at least doesn’t require filing (so it claims).
• Polish-able: You can paint over it using regular nail polish as long as you remove it with a non-acetone nail polish remover. Haven’t tried this yet.

 

What I didn’t like:

• Time Consuming: Partly because of the curing, and partly because of the additional precision it takes to paint the thicker gel, a soak-off gel manicure takes longer than a regular one. Patience required.
• Cost: Soak-off gel manicures are also more expensive than a regular manicure on a per-time basis, but they require refreshes less frequently. However, nail growth shows unless you get a clear base, so you may want to get fill-ins.
• Fill-Ins: As noted above, but deserving of a separate point, nail growth shows if you get solid colours, especially dark ones.
• Removal: Which takes me to the next point, which is that soak-off gels are not easily removal from home. When nail growth shows, it’s not as easily remediable from home as regular polishes. You have to soak in acetone for some time, and from what I’ve read it may still be hard to remove. Otherwise, you can pay to have it professionally removed, or paint over with regular polish until it grows out.
• Colour Choice: Even though the handful of brands combined offer a large variety of colours, it is not comparable to the HUGE variety of colours available from the many, MANY, regular nail polish brands. Plus, the salon you visit is probably using only ONE soak-off gel brand and possibly a subset of that brand’s available colours.
• Boredom: Personally, I am done with a colour after a week (fickle, I know). Maybe because I wasn’t in love with this colour to begin with, but I was ready to change the polish about 3 days ago.

Overall, I liked trying soak-off gel polish if only to satisfy my curiosity and can see myself doing it again for a big event or traveling, when I wouldn’t want to worry about wear or chipping. This is in contrast to traditional gel nails which I never wanted to do again after trying once because of how thin and brittle my nails were afterwards. However, if I was doing it again I would make sure I choose a salon that does nail art and has a wider variety of shades (don’t get me wrong, the one I went to still had ~50, but I had my heart set on a purple manicure, which narrowed my choices down to maybe 5 colours). I figure I will get bored less quickly if I was in love with the shade and had some subtle nail art to look at.