Paitence is golden.
The best way to get the most perfect, long lasting set of nails is to grow your own. Start with your natural nails, which ever length they are now. Do a structured gel overlay.
All you need to get there is time and a few tools
The idea is to add a layer of strenghthening product to protect your nails from breaking, allowing them to grow out to their maximum potential.
If your nails are not prepped yet - start with Nail Preparation.
If they're prepped and ready to go - choose a builder gel product and get to work.
Long strong nails don't have to be fake. If you want to avoid having to extend your nails in any one of the methods that add artificial length, you can grow your own nails to their maximum length.
Simply start covering your natural nails in builder gel, even when they are short.
They will grow super fast and will not chip or break, this will allow them to grow from manicure to manicure, this way in about 6 weeks, your short nails will be long fabolous claws.
If you just took a break from gel manicures and are starting from short natural nails, or you're fed up with using extension methods that are hard to do on yourself, try this method of getting long nails with natural time, by covering your natural nails with a structured gel.
Structured Gel Manicure
The idea behind the structured gel manicure, sometimes called anatomically structured gel manicure, is to enhance the healthy structure of the nail by adding hard gel as a durable, protective overlay product.
The Apex
The apex of the nail is the highest and thickest part of the structure that is applied to the nail when doing a structured gel overlay. This is the central point of the nail plate - the nail plate is the part of the nail from the cuticle to the start of the free edge - the part of your nail that is not in touch with your actual finger.
This point is the bridge between the growth points of the nail - the central cuticle and the nail sides.
Keeping the apex of the nail well structured, we improve the durability of the gel manicure, helping it last for 4-8 weeks without breaking or chipping.
The Free Edge
The free edge of the nail is the part of the nail that starts at the cuticle and ends where the nail separates from the finger and the skin. The free edge is kept as the thinnest point of the nail structure, it is usually filed to one of the most popular shapes: square, almond, stilleto, coffin and oval.Usually, when wearing such a hard overlay, we only need to fill out the growth of the nail near the cuticle and leave the free edge with the lighetest addition. After the nails grow, the anatomic structure of the nails change, with the previous apex structure moving higher onto the nail, while the actual apex of the nail is kept without support.
Easy Maintenace - Quick Results
In the hard gel overlay fill, we use the product from the cuticle, downward, creating the apex again in the new position, and thus we don't have to remove the whole product when the nails grow, we should only file off around the growth and file off any lifting or separation of the gel product from the natural nail.
The great thing about the structured gel manicure, is that it is a low maintenace treatment, needed every 4-8 weeks depending at your nails growth rate, and within 4 months you will find your nails are longer than they've ever been naturally.