Forget chips and polish that only lasts a few days. Shellac is the newest generation of salon nail colour that helps your nails stay perfect and chip-free for up to 14 days. In short, Shellac nail polish is a hybrid between a nail polish and a gel lacquer that is “baked” on to your nail with a UV light.
If you choose to try out Shellac, there are some tried-and-true rules to abide by:
DON’T: Pick it off yourself
For the love of all that is good, don’t make this mistake in any capacity (ever, under any circumstances), but if you’re boasting a rich sheen, remember that few things look worse alongside it than chipped edges and exposed nails. Thus, as soon as you start to see the paint peel, grab that remover and get to work. Because while chipped nail polish was once all the rage (in middle school), a polished aesthetic has no room for such amateur tendencies.
DO: Properly maintain
Since picking off nail polish seems like the next step after the shellac starts showing its age, nip the problem in the bud and either remove your shade altogether, or if there’s no time to do so, touch it up quick before heading out the door. While painting over old polish will only lead to uneven nails (and looks unappealing after a couple of days), with a coat like shellac, chips and cracks will only show even more. However, don’t keep your recent touch-up for more than a two-day span: as soon as you can, remove old polish and repaint “ otherwise, you’ll stumble upon the only thing that looks worse than a picked-off topcoat.
DON’T: Over-apply
The classic aesthetic of a well-applied shellac nail polish can hardly be beat, and in an attempt to keep our nails looking rich and well-textured, there’s often the want to go crazy with multiple coats, when in reality, only two is usually necessary. True, under-applying will only make nails look incomplete and hardly professional, but gooping on product will result in it pooling along the sides of your nails and at the cuticles, leading to a sloppy look on par with what happens to most of us when trying to paint with our opposite hand. (And when that ensues, use a Q-Tip and a dab of nail polish remover to clean up the aftermath.)
