Gelish Removal

This is for all the ladies who are about to enter a Covid-19 lockdown with overgrown gelish. Don’t put yourself at risk and enter a salon.

I have an obsession with doing my nails. I have to paint them and used to do it religiously, myself, every Saturday. It’s a ritual that I’ve developed over the years as I navigate through life single.

Last year however, I met a wonderful nail technician by absolute chance. Her name is Promise and she owns Polished Up at 52 Kingfisher Drive, Fourways. My friend Marlene referred her to me one day when I was marveling at her black gelish. I had kept Promise in my memory bank for weeks until I was convinced on the sidewalk by a desperate-looking man with bad breathe to get my nails done at his new salon. ‘Give me a chance’, he cried. How could I not? The end result was horrific and my nails was in desperate need of salvation. Enter Promise. She gave me an appointment the same day.

Covid-19 has made me cry. For family that I won’t see and for friends who I’ve fallen in love with and clearly cannot live without. I know I will walk into Room 18 at Polished Up again, but in the meantime I have had to, for the first time, remove my gelish myself.

Directions

• Pour a generous amount of Acetone into a tiny bowl (sold in Pick n Pay for less than R30)

• Break off 10 small pieces of cotton wool. Improvise with tampons and cotton swabs if you don’t have cotton wool.

• Cut 10 pieces of foil.

• Over a paper towel, file your gelish lightly until it’s slightly rough.

• When you’re done with all 10 fingers, dip the cotton wool in the Acetone and wrap each finger in foil.

• After 25 minutes remove the foil and with the back of a fork/spoon scrape your gelish off your nail. If some remains, just slip your foil with the soaked cotton wool back on your finger. Wait a little and scrape again.

• Buff and shine as normal.