#NailFail- Don't DIY Fix a Gel Mani

The Claw of Shame (c) PipPepPop

     I got a gel manicure last week for a wedding. It was great! To clarify, it was as great as a gel manicure can be. It lasted about 5 days before the inevitable chipping began. This time, it was my thumbnails. They began losing chunky pieces right at the end of the nails, which is a nice change from the usual way I lose a gel manicure (pieces begin peeling away from the cuticle edge- ouch)! I thought I could solve my nail problem the same way I fixed my toes.  I touched up my big toes with a slim pink line on the edge with a glossy gel-like topcoat to seal in the new paint. Spoiler alert, I could not achieve this lofty beauty goal.

     The gel manicure itself is a fickle beauty routine. It essentially gives you quickly dried nails with a strong topcoat. It lasts more days than a standard manicure and is less mess  than some more invasive nail procedures. The only downsides are the potential skin cancer in your hands from the UV light (I always slather sunscreen on my hands before going to the salon), and the sometime painful process of removing gel from your nails. I've perfected the art of the gel home removal, but sometimes it's more of a science. It depends on the amount of layers the technician has placed of gel and color on you hand, and sometimes pure luck. See below for more details.

My other nail obsession: nail polish stickers (c) PipPepPop

    Back to my story.  I painted a think pink line on my thumbs (see above) and considered letting it dry. But, I worried the new polish would sit on top of the shiny gel layer like goop. I reached for my handy gel-like nail clear coat and swiped away. Here's where things went haywire. The clear coat looked good for a few hours, until it dried and became almost brittle. My shiny thumbs now have cracks in the top coat and my gel mani is officially DOA. They are very scratched and rough to the touch now. With some handy internet research, Allure taught me that a regular polish can be liquid-based for up to 24 hours. If done correctly, a gel-like coating can be applied to a regular manicure, but it's all a game of chance. So, I may have inadvertently made my mani worse by mixing a hard cover with an improperly dried top coat. Alas, I may need a break from gel for a while. I'm sticking to easy-to-remove metallic polishes for the fall.

Cleaning Gel off Your Nails: Step by Step
1. You will need: acetone-based polish remover, cotton swabs, tinfoil, a nail file, a small wood nail poking stick (a dowel with a sharp end) and patience.
3. Roughly scrape the nail file over the top of our nails to begin breaking up the gel.
2. Soak the cotton swabs or cotton circles (my fave) in a few drops of nail polish. They just need to absorb some of the remover or they'll drip.
3. Cut or rip small rectangles of tinfoil for the next step.
4. Wrap the soaked cotton around each nail and set with small foil caps.
     The closer your fingers look like little aliens. the better.
5. Sit for at least 20 minutes. Let the acetone soak. It will get in your nose.
6. Polish will be ready to prod with the wood stick it starts to separate from the nail bed.
7. Hopefully your polish is very loose and comes off clean from the nail with one jab with a wood stick. If not, repeat the process.
8. If you have given up, I found a battery-operated foot pumice can help at getting stubborn bits of gel off your nails.

I'm Finally Binge Watching The Middle

I'm baaack friends! I was hoping to get back to writing last week, but I'm fighting some neck pain that makes writing more difficult. Alas, I begin to write slowly. I have been taking some summer time for sun, fun, and comedy binge watching!

Image from ABC.com- The Wisdom Teeth

      I was looking for something to put on Hulu while I wound down to go to sleep, and I settled on ABC's The Middle. The Patricia Heaton (Deborah from Everybody Loves Raymond)  and Neil Flynn (The Janitor from Scrubs) led sitcom embraces everyday life to a somewhat extreme point, but the family is ultimately likable. Frankie Heck and her husband Mike live in Indiana with their three kids, Axel, Sue and Brick. Axel and Sue have gone off to college and teen Brick (Atticus Shaffer)  thought he was finally getting comfortable as the only kid in the house. Sue and Axel are far from ready to leave the next, and pop in often from their school, which is less than an hour away.

     This basic premise brings me to the 7th season finale, "The Show Must Go On", which chronicles Brick's 8th grade graduation. Brick's graduation is almost eclipsed by Sue's sendoff to a summer job at Dollywood. Frankie quickly realizes the stars on the calendar must be there for some important event she forgot. Quickly, she tries to make Brick's graduation day special. Brick shares with the family he was going to be one of 15 acts singing in graduation. This would have completed his "hero's journey" because he lost out at being valedictorian. Then, the teachers had a drawing to only pick 9 acts to perform and Brick lost out.

     Suddenly, the very passive Frankie jumps up to protect her son and get him on the stage for graduation. Mike talks to the principal first and gets nowhere, lamenting that everyone thinks their kid is a star these days and he's not buying it. He doesn't even know if Brick can sing. Frankie  meets with the principal, explaining that she's not one of those  parents that marches down to the school and complains but she needs to make a stand this time  for this kid, because he's the youngest and he's always getting shafted. She rants about the "fuzzy math" that led to picking 9 acts. Long story short, all 15 are allowed to perform, and it's the longest graduation ever. Brick surprised the family by singing a beautiful song while his friend played the ukulele.  Sue has to make a quick exit to make it to Dollywood and the whole family piles in the car to see her off to Tennessee. As summer begins, Sue succeeds at playing a grandmothery hostess part at the theme park restaurant, and Axel meets the girl of his dreams. The whole episode was endearing, quotable, and reminded me a lot of real life. It's so hard to find a sitcom these days that resonates with everyday problems. Bravo!

Other Episodes That Rocked this Season:
1. Find My Hecks:
Frankie installs a chip in the kids' phones to track them when they go to parties.
2.  The Lenai:
Frankie has a beautiful new porch and loud neighbors move in next door.
3. The Wisdom Teeth:
Frankie babies Sue and Axel when they come home to have their wisdom teeth out.