My Gel Nail Experience

My experience with nails

I still remember when I was only 5 years old, I was already in love with nails and would always take my markers and draw on my nails. But I had to stop once I got into middle school and high school in Taiwan since the uniform rules were very strict. After college life started, I started doing a lot of various nail art designs, from french nails, to polka dot nails, glitter, and ombre. I always did my own nails because as a college student getting your nails done is a pretty expensive thing to do. And I didn't really consider gel nail until after college. I still remember the first time I went to a proper nail salon in NYC, I was so mesmerized by my soft gel nails. Since that one time experience, I started experimenting with doing soft gel myself. But because doing the whole process by myself takes about 3 hours each time, including taking the old design off, drawing on the new design etc I started going back to nail salons again. Also Gel Nail polish is pretty expensive, so you will need to invest a lot to get a good color collection. 

** Normal nail polish and UV gel polish are different. If you put normal nail polish under a UV lamp it won't harden or dry faster. Normal nail polish is usually very inexpensive from US $1, but UV gel polish start from around $14 USD per bottle. Imagine if you want 10 colors of UV gel polish. 

The first time I did my own gel nails, was pretty successful!

Soft Gel vs Hard Gel

Both of these nail styles take a long time to do. Although you might think that normal nail polish takes a long time to dry, but both soft gel and hard gel require multiple layer of coating to complete the look. A typical Soft Gel session at the salon will take 1.5hr and Hard Gel takes at least 2 hours. With complicated designs it can take 3 hours long! Usually soft gel can last around 2-3 weeks, as for Hard Gel I'm not too sure since I usually do soft, but I'd recon it would last for longer. Hard Gel is worse for your nail health though. 

What to expect at a nail salon?

Here are the steps you go through at a nail salon, some might have more steps and others might skip some steps. 

• Clean up dead skin
• First they will ask you to dip your fingers into warm-hot water to soften the skin
• New skin will grow onto your nail surface from your nail bed, so they will use a small scoop shaped stick to scrape off the thin layer of skin
• Any dead skin on the two sides of your finger will be clipped off
• These processes don't hurt at all 

•  Remove previous gel nail layer

•  Soft Gel
• First they will use a nail filer and file down the surface of the gel nail
• They'll put nail polish remover on cotton balls and wrap them around each finger with aluminum foil.
• After the gel nail softens, they'll use a sharper blade like tool to scrape of the rest of the gel nail

•  Hard Gel: for hard gel you just have to use a nail filing drill thing, it spins really fast and causes friction so the gel nail layer will come off much quicker.

• Refine nail shape
• After everything is removed, they'll buff your nails and then just reshape your nails.
• There are several types of nail shapes, but the most common are: oval, oval-squared, and squared.

• Gel Nail design
•  First 2 coatings are the clear gel. They put a layer of gel, 2 finger nails at a time and then you cure it with a UV lamp for about 30 seconds or more so it hardens.
• After that you'll do the colors and designs as needed, these are not normal nail polish, they are UV gel nail polish. 
• Any gems or bling come on last and usually require hard gel to stick in place better.
• Then it's another 2-3 layers of clear gel.
• At the end they will file down any sides that have gel nail over spilling the nail bed.

• Lotion
• After the whole process they will usually give you some lotion to moisturize your skin.

Prices

All of the above process are standard processes in a gel nail manicure. They shouldn't charge you any extra for these services combined. Some salons will charge you for nail removal which is ridiculous, so I tend to avoid those ones. As prices for design go, usually they will add increments on price when you add: more than 1 extra color, design on nails (dots/lines/drawings), gems/deco. Soft and hard gel prices are also different. For reference, the cheapest nails I've done are at Nail For You in HK (which I'll review in my next blog) which cost me around $29 USD for 2 colors + 2 designs + 8 gem stones. In NYC I did a 1 color + 2 deco bows for $60 USD. It really depends on where you are and how complicated your design is to determine the price. But often a lot of salons offer packages, so if you buy a 10 time gel nail package it will be cheaper than paying for each time separately.

 

  This is the manicure that cost $60 USD in NYC. Very expensive! 

How often?

Generally I wait until something is wrong with my nails (there is a crack, I chipped a corner, one of the bling fell off). That usually takes somewhere between 2-3 weeks. Also because the designs I do are more obvious colors so when they grow out it's very obvious. If you don't want to do your nails that often, you can choose a design that is clear at your nail bed and then ombre at the tip into a glittery french nail. Because even if new nail grows out it wouldn't look very awkward.

Why I'm an absolute fan of gel nail

It lasts for a really long time without chipping! Gel nail rarely chips, and I hate chipped nails. Plus they make your nails much stronger, so for people that are more active or careless like me it's much more convenient because I don't need to worry about breaking my nails and having to wait for them to grow out again. Although there are some articles online saying that doing these gel nail processes really damage your nails, but I've been doing them for over 2 years and my natural naked nails still look perfect and undamaged. I think it may depend on what your original nail conditions are like. It's up to you to do your own research to see if this is a good option for you!

Here are 3 more designs that I actually done by myself at home:

(You probably notice that I'm holding normal nail polish and not gel polish. This is my proper explanation: as a poor girl that still wants to look pretty, you improvise. I sandwiched my normal nail polish in between clear UV gel base/top coat so I can save the money of buying colored UV gel nail polish. It still works, but you just need to wait for the normal polish layer to dry before applying the UV gel top coat.)

 

I hope this article has been helpful! These are just my personal experiences. Comment down below if you have any questions! Next up is my favorite nail salon in Hong Kong - Nail For You.

Cape Town Day 12 (Vlog) | Last Day & Miniature Movie

Last day in Cape Town was a very relaxing day full of shopping for souvenirs around the Waterfront. Most of the souvenirs are animal related actually. To name a few, you can buy: porcupine quill, animal skin cut outs that are made into key chains, springbok skin bags, and then there was this really cool wood-carved chess set that was full of animal pieces including the Big 5.

Concluding the trip, we went to Belthazar one last time before we had to say bye to the most amazing steak in the world, as well as the most amazing sweet potato fries in the world. It's sad that from now on, no matter what kind of steak I eat, it will be mediocre compared to South African steak.

I've already wrote 12 really long blogs about how amazing South Africa is, so I'm sure there is no need for summary. But the biggest takeaway is that you can't truly understand what South Africa is like until you are actually there in person. All the videos and words are an understatement. You just have to go and see it for yourself. The 12hr flight is worth it! 

I hope this series of Cape Town blogs have helped you understand Cape Town more, now GO BUY THAT PLANE TICKET!!

Thanks to my camera's miniature mode, I was able to take some short clips of different places in Cape Town, click on the image below to watch the video:

 

A Journey to the Hub of the Americas on board Copa Airlines

Copa Airlines – a review
comment below and let me know your thoughts :)

I have flown Copa Airlines twice – once in 2010 and again more recently in December 2014.  In between there have been some differences between the flights but the basic concept remains: Copa charges a lot less than its competitors so for a lower price you get a lower quality product. The question is – is the lower quality product worth it, especially on long-haul vs short-haul?  Hopefully my review will help you with that.

The two times I booked my flights it was never through the Copa website; it was always through a third-party website (orbitz or expedia).  That is because either their website never worked all the time, sometimes I would get ‘system down’ messages, while other times the airline did not match with their alliance partners on their website.  After I had booked my travel on another site, I always went to Copa to ensure my information was correct and there I could change my seats and add my FF#’s but again sometimes the site worked and sometimes it did not.

The first time I flew Copa was in December 2010 from Washington, D.C. to Buenos Aires via Panama City and all segments were flown by Copa.  The first segment, from IAD to PTY, was a 5-hour flight on an older Boeing 737 (looked like a Continental Airlines hand-me-down).  A meal was served but there was no in-flight entertainment so while it was a not a great flight, it was decent for a short-haul.  The second flight was a much longer 8-hour flight from PTY to EZE flown again on an older plane that did not have a lot of leg room, a meal served, and no in-flight entertainment.  I was not overly impressed with the planes, the seat quality (which were poor), the meal quality, nor with the in-flight service.  Nothing was bad, but nothing was good either but could I really complain?  Copa beat out their competitors in terms of price by at least $200 so for a lower price how much can you expect?!  A decent plane with decent service and a low price is what Copa offered and delivered on that.  The only bad thing was that I could not earn any FF miles – Copa was a mileage earner with Continental and at that time Continental was part of SkyTeam but Copa itself was not part of SkyTeam so you could not earn miles on any SkyTeam member.

Things were a bit the same but a little different when I flew Copa again in December 2014 from Houston to Panama City via Orlando.  Copa does not fly directly to Houston, which to me is strange because they have a large Latin-American population, but I guess the Houston to PTY route was reserved for Continental and now for United.  The route that was most cost-efficient, again by at least $150 compared to their competitors, was IAH to MCO via United connecting to Copa to fly MCO to PTY.  As Copa is now a member of Star Alliance, they can partner with Star Alliance members for easy connections as well as mileage accrual. 

From IAH to MCO, I flew on a new United Boeing 737 with updated seats and interior lighting; there were no IFE’s but the plane was decent.  From MCO to PTY, I flew on a new Copa Boeing 737 that had new seats, interior Boeing lighting, as well as personal IFE (free to use).  The odd thing was the United and Copa plane were the exact same plane with the only difference that Copa had installed IFE’s (they are in the process of installing them so some planes have them and some do not).  This 3-hour Copa flight was a lot better than the flight I took in 2010 mainly because of the seat quality – the new seats were more comfortable and definitely more bearable to sit on.  The addition of the IFE was a nice touch – the IFE was not very extensive but was sufficient for a 3-5 hour flight as it had about 10 TV show episodes as well as about 4 movies (updated movies as well).  The airline passed out free headphones to all passengers so that they could use the IFE.  The also had a USB port to help with charging electronic devices.  A light meal service was provided and again the in-flight service was decent with a definite improvement in the quality of service from 4 years prior.

Boeing Mood Lighting - Boeing 737

The return was the complete opposite as from PTY to MCO it was an older Copa plane that did not have any IFE or other entertainment in the plane.  A light meal was served and service was decent once in the air (we sat in the plane on the ground for about 2 hours before we took off; the captain made the announcement only after an hour of waiting).  Even though it was an older plane, the seats were comfortable enough for the 3 hour flight.  From MCO to IAH, I flew on an updated United plane with updated seats and IFE (that you had to pay for).  The seat pitch was rather tight so the 1hr 40min flight felt longer (and the service was on the lower side of average with the flight attendants barely caring). 

Overall, there is a definite marked improvement of Copa Airlines from 2010 to 2014.  The product is being updated and, more importantly, the service is being updated to a better quality.  The hub of Copa is Tocumen International Airport which is located about 30 minutes outside of the city center – and this has also had an upgrade within the last 4 years with better services for the passengers (more improvements are still needed).  The improvements are welcomed but overall the planes, the seat comfort, and the service are great for short-haul but I am not sure they are good or comfortable for anything long-haul.  With Copa, you get a basic service for a basic price.