So, a day or two into my valentines day mani (wasn't even Valentines day yet! LOL), I got a split in my usual wayward thumbnail. I abuse this poor nail (I know, nails are not tools, LOL) and unfortunately it splits more often than I would like.
So, after a long day of work where I tore it, I came home, ate dinner, put on my jammies and went to repair my split....... only to discover I could not for the life of me find my nail glue buried somewhere on the mess I call a kitchen table! LOL.
So I decided to try something else. I soaked off and carefully removed my SOG from that nail and prepped the nail as I normally do.
I cut my silk wrap to fit over my tear (a bad one too - nearly halfway across my nail) and stuck it over it. I used Gelish basecoat over top of it instead of glue. I scrubbed just a tiny amount over the silk wrap and cured it. I made sure the silk wrap was completely covered with the gel, and that it was scrubbed into all the little silk fibers.
I had a small wrinkle in the silk wrap at one corner that I'd not been able to flatten out, so I removed the sticky layer with alcohol and buffed the wrinkle a little with a 240 grit buffer to smooth it out.
Then I applied Gelish basecoat over the entire nail, cured it, and continued on with my SOG manicure as usual. Because it was late after I'd worked all day, and I had to work again the next day I didn't bother applying structure. I'd fully expected the nail to break completely after a day or two, which is what usually happens when I have splits this bad.
The finished repair and nail felt surprisingly sturdy! I think I did this last Monday, so today would be 8 days on the repair. It's still fine, the only reason I'll be changing up the manicure tomorrow is because I'm ready for a change and the growth is bugging me. :-)
I'm very excited about this and I think everyone should give this repair a try. I absolutely plan on repatching it this same way tomorrow when I redo my manicure. It just seems like the gel layers bond together with the silk wrap so much better than with the nail glue. I've been doing the repairs with the glue as I have shown before for a year, and was a firm believer in that system. This type of repair might work better for everyone, but I think this will definitely be my new system!
This next time I will probably go ahead and apply the structure on that nail, as I'll be doing something with regular polish and I won't have the support from the gel layers.
This was the valentines day manicure.
Two coats of Gelish A New Sunrise Sparkle, then a single coat of Gossip Girl on the tips, then Artsy Fartsy Crafts "Valentine Multi-mix" glitter on the tips, and faded up the nail.
Update:
While I don't have a video tutorial to add, I did take some pictures today when I redid my mani, and thus the repair. (click on the pictures to see them larger)
After removing my old gel and prepping my nails, I cut a piece of silk wrap to make a patch. The ones I use are still the same as those I used in the previous method's video and are self-adhesive. I applied the silk wrap piece as a patch over the split.
Next I applied Gelish Basecoat gel, making sure to really scrub it into the silk wrap, and cure. This is what you should have.
It wasn't completely smooth, as I often have a corner of the wrap that folds over and I cant' get it to unfold. No big deal - remove the sticky layer with alcohol and use a 240 or 320 grit buffer to smooth it out where it's bumpy and at the edges.
Apply Gelish basecoat over the entire nail as usual and cure
You can now go about finishing your manicure the same way you always do. Because I was doing something with regular polish this time, I chose to just do a clear manicure, so I followed this with a layer of Gelish Structure and then Top It Off. You cannot see the repair at all, even though a completely clear manicure.
