How to do French Gel Polish with step by step pictures

How To Do French With Gel Polish Step By Step

February 20, 2017

Hi,

I am going to share one of my secrets with you today and this is nothing else but how to do French gel polish.

Personally speaking, I did not like the way how I was trained many, many years ago so I had to find another way. With the "old school" way the free edge was far too thick and looked very bumpy as well. Not a good look at all. So I stopped for a moment and figured out how to do it right to make sure it looks flawless.

I used our Xone range from NABA, because it can be applied in one step and cured under LED light. It is an extra fast gel lac range without any sticky layer after curing time. It can be used on natural nails as well as on artifical nails (gel, acrylics).

The preparation of the natural nail is the same as per usual before gel polish service. I like to use my spray Nail Prep. It makes the preparation quicker and it is just as effective as I was using the bottle version of it. I have noticed, the more preparation liquids I use under gel polish, the harder it gets to soak it off. Bare this in mind, after using spray nail prep, I only applied a tiny amount of ultrabond on the free edge only.

If you use the Xone range, you can decide if you want to use the Base gel or not. I was interested how long my nails last without any base, so I gave it a miss this time.

As a step 2, I used the white Xone colour on the free edge. Don't even try to apply it the way you can see it on this picture with the brush included. You will need a fine nail art brush to help and do the job properly. My favourites are: Top Liner and Russina Sriper brushes. When its done, cure. You can cure it in LED or UV lamp too. When it is fully cured, there is no tacky layer, it is as shiny as if you applied Top Coat already.

As step 3, let's make the nail bed look good. To achieve this, you will need a cover pink colour in gel polish. This is a tricky bit as every clients skin is different. That's why I always recommend to have at least 2 shades of cover pinks from normal hard gels as well as from acrylics. But what about gel polishes? "Normal" gel lac offers you a couple of shades of pinks to do this. However they do need base so this is not an option for me at the moment. I used the Xone cover pink instead. It is not a very pinky pink cover pink colour at all. More like a nude cover pink which I prefer anyway. So apply this colour on your nail bed, and brush it thinly towards to the cuticle area with a gel builder brush like #6 cat. Cure.

In theory, job is done! How easy is that! This is like a reverse technique of applying gel polish. But what else you can do? How can you correct if you made any mistakes?

Here are some of my tips:

if you feel the free edge and the nail bed are not at the same level (meaning free edge is still a bit higher) very gently you can buff the white free edge first. Just to get them at the same level. Don't use a file, it might be too harsh on the gel polish and you will take off far too much product and need to start again.
if you buffed the white free edge, you need to buff very very lightly the cover pink too. Why? Because now as the shine is gone from the free edge, you need to put it back. To apply top coat, you will need either a sticky surface (we do not have it with this gel polish, remember? ) or buffed surface.

side view

you will need a flexible top coat for sure. As this is a gel polish service, my recommendation to use the Base & Top gel from NABA as this was designed to use with gel polishes anyway. Don't forget this top coat will stay sticky after curing time, so you will need to cleanse it.

Well, this is a very classy look and I am sure a big favourite in the salons too. I could not help myself and had to do something different on at least 2 of my nails. :) Here is the final result.