Does anyone do their own nails?

[MushroomTree]

If so, what do you do? What do you use? Are the at home gel kits worth the money? Can I use any nail varnish with them or does it have to be a specific product?

I've recently bought the Mylee gel cure lamp and some cheap polishes from Amazon. You do a layer of base coat, cure it then apply a few layers of colour (cure each one under the lamp) then a top coat, cure that and you're done. I love mine, it's dead easy and lasts a week at least, using cheapo products and not being very precise or careful. It would probably last longer if I put more effort into doing very thin layers and/or used better quality polishes. You do need gel polish for it, not normal nail varnish.

This starter kit is brill, bit more expensive than the lamps with bulbs but it cures the Gel in 30 seconds rather than 2 minutes so for the extra £15-20 it is much better, my sister is a nail tech and told me to get this set and use the Halo Gel polish's as they last well. Follow a tutorial on youtube and you cant go far wrong 😁

I have the mylee lamp too, you can always do a gel polish and once completely finished do a normal nail polish on top.

Thanks for the tips and recommendations.

I only asked about the polish because I've got loads of colours I love already and I can't afford to replace them all with gel versions. Plus I'm worried I won't find matches.

Maybe I'll put a starter kit on my birthday list!

If you're not averse to falsies, I buy large packs of plain false nails from Amazon, glue and file them myself and then paint them. Nail polish doesn't chip on plastic. They last about two weeks before they need the odd re-glue (or just a new set if I want to change colour), but it's overall very cost effective because you can get hundreds of nails for under a tenner and they last many months.

I just use Rimmel gel polish, you buy the gel colour then a clear setting polish over the top. Cheap as chips and lasts at least 10 days on my hands (I do a fair bit of gardening, washing up etc) and about a month on my toes. No need for lamps or anything.

Normal basecoat, 2x colour, topcoat. Lasts 5 days and is easy to take off. No faffing, cheap, not tied to a colour for ages.

Poundland often have some amazing 'branded' nail polishes

I quite like le mini macaron gel. It’s 3 in 1 so you don’t need to faff with base coat or top coat. The lamps are cute too but you can only do one nail at a time. Quite cheap really for a starter kit on amazon.