Gel nail kit- help me spend my birthday money on myself rather than my kids

[superslipper]

For the first time in a long time, I'd actually like to spend my birthday money on myself. I've just had a baby and thought a gel nail kit would help me feel a little more glam and a little less mumsy. Can anyone recommend a good kit, I.e. lamp, polishes, remover etc.
From Amazon would be great.

Anyone? I'm newish to gel nails, so don't want to buy the wrong thing.

Sensationail.

I’ve found little to choose between them. I bought a lamp separately and buy whatever gel top coat and base coats are on offer. You can mix and match brands. I use a non wipe top coat to save buying yet another product - but you can just use vodka instead

The colour layer is whatever I fancy. I rarely bother buying gel, the cheap fashion brands will last a good 2 weeks on me when sandwiched between gel top and base coats.

Go for a led lamp not a uv one - the led cures each layer in about 30 seconds, the uv ones are about 90 seconds which means a manicure takes forever when you’ve got base coat, colour and top coat to do!

I use blue sky nail varnish and mylee prep and removers from eBay

I got a lamp from amazon and the rest of the stuff from sensationail in Boots.

I got this kit from Ebay and it's great - then you can just pick up new varnish colours for about £6 a pop whenever you fancy a change and you don't need to buy anything else extra.

I agree that an LED lamp is the way to go too - much quicker!

You could also try the peel-off base coat - I always peel off my gels anyway as it's quicker. As I don't buff my nails beforehand the gel doesn't last as long but my nails are in much better condition.

I have a mylee pro led lamp, there is some good deals for starter kits on eBay/amazon. I use mylee prep and polish and just normal acetone to remove them. I use all bluesky polishes including top coat and base coat. I would recommend this set for you. I love doing my own gel nails and have used this non stop since I bought it.

The remover is acetone with a little colouring and perfume. Buy acetone from eBay; it's much cheaper. Cleanser is isopopropyl alcohol, another eBay one. I use about 80% IPA and 20% acetone as my cleanser/dehydrator.

Halo's a good UK brand if you want fast delivery. I buy mine from Amazon. Note that the prices on Halo's website don't include VAT and the Amazon ones do. If you don't mind waiting, Born Pretty gels are good (the website's down for me at the moment but they can be cheaper on eBay anyway, so check first). Their peel off base is great if you have reasonably good nails to start and want to change your polish frequently. My nails are peely and the peel off base tends to pull layers of my nail off with it.

Salon Services won't sell you gels without an account, for which you need to have some sort of beauty qualification, but they'll sell you nail files, scrapers etc. Speaking of scrapers, I like the triangular ones like this better than this sort.

The Nail Hub's YouTube channel is worth watching. She's a nail pro who thinks anyone can do gel nails. She can be pretty wordy though.

Yep - defo watch some tutorials on you tube before you start but it’s really easy and convenient and miles better than normal nail polish

Oh thank you, I like the look of the complete set to begin with, so I don't have to buy it all separately.