3 Best and Easy Ways to Remove a Gel Manicure at home

Removing gel polish or gel products at home is an important step to master, whether you are just changing up between manicures, doing an extension fill or simply removing it all to give your nails a break.

There are a few easy ways to remove a gel manicure at home, without causing damage to your natural nails. Read about the best ways to remove a gel manicure at home, and choose the besy way to remove your gel quickly.

The three ways to remove gel polish at home depend on which products you have available at home and which type of gel manicure you have. If you have an E-File, plain hand nail file, acetone or alominum foil, you will find a method for you to remove your gel nails or polish. You just have to find the spare time to do it.

The best ways to remove a gel manicure at home listed below are ordered by quickest to slowest, with the quickest way requires more equipment than the slowest way.

• E-file it off - fast but messy gel removal with an electric file, using special gel removal bits made of carbide or ceramic. If you want to remove poly gel, or hybrid gel or acrygel, you should use this method only. If you aren't skilled with an E-File yet, get educated or go to remove them with a professional.

• Soak it off - long but rather clean method to remove gel manicures or any other gel manicure with a peel off base like rubber base. Builder / hard gel will not come off easy this way. This method requires using cotton balls, aluminum foil and 100% acetone. Less concentrated aceton (40%, 75% etc.) will not work.

• Hand file it off - the longenst method to do at home, but it requires only a hand nail file, at a grit of 80-100.

E-file it OFF: Use an E-File to remove a gel manicure at home

If you have an E-File you can really speed up the process of removing gel polish or even harder gel structures used in extensions. The electronic file rotates on its own, allowing you to direct friction at the gel product, which removes it very very fast.

This method is currently the most common and preferred method in nail salons. The advantage of this method is that you have a lot of control on how much you remove so you can handle all gel nail manicures there are. The disadvantages of using an e-file to remove gel manicure at home is that you need a machine and drill bits, you need training on how to use it properly, and most importanlty - it blows a whole lot of dust into the air.

Consider wearing a mask when removing gel with an electronic file, so you don't breath in all the particles that will fly to the air. Many nail techinicians will also use small desk vacumes or even bigger industrial particle control system to mange the huge amounts of product that flies in the air. Always finish off the gel removal by dusting off any excess debris or dust from the hand and the e-file and then spraying clean with alcohol.

Dusty thumb after gel removal of structured hard gel and polish

Soak OFF the GEL: Classic way to remove a gel manicure at home

You will need 100% Acetone solution, cotton balls, a hand file, a cuticle pusher and aluminum foil to hold your soak on your nails.

Any gel removal method requires some filing to break the seal of the top coat, so this part is the most important part of all best and easy ways to remove a gel manicure at home. Without removing the top cote shiny layer by filing it off, we won't be able to get the effect of the acetone that will break down the gel, if the acetone does not come into contact with the gel.

So start off by filing off the shiny top coat on the nail. Follow up by preparing 10 square aluminum foil pieces that can wrap around your finger tips easily. You will have to soak pieces of cotton ball in the acetone, generously, and then place that cotton ball fully soaked, on your nail. Once the cotton ball is on the nail, wrap it up with aluminum foil to let it start working. Do the rest of your fingers and wait for 10 minutes. If the wraps feel warm before that, air them out to control the temperature, there is a chemical reaction that causes the heat.

Now, when the time passed, take off one wrap on one of your fingers to see if the soak off had been enough. Use the cuticle pusher to scrape off the gel that lifted from the nail thanks to the acetone reaction. If you are able to remove the gel from the entire nail rather easy, continue doing the rest of the nails similarly. If the scraping wasn't easy, consider leaving the rest to soak a little longer and make sure the cotton balls inside the wraps are not dry. Now, you're nails are clean of gel. You should wash them well and don't forget to moisturize after such a chemical process that dries the natural nail plate.

File OFF the GEL: Use only a hand file to remove a gel manicure at home

If all you have at home is a nail file, you can still get your gel polish or even your whole gel nails off at home, with just a hand file, no other equipment needed.

Just patience - this process takes longer than the rest, and a bit of care near the cuticles.

Simply start by filing off the top coat shine, then continue to remove the tinted gel polish or structure, and make sure to arrive at the base coat, and remove it completly.

Be gentle around the cuticles, as the skin there is very sensitive and you may injure yourself if you aren't careful. Choose a coarse nail file with a 80-100 Grit (a measure for the coarseness of the file) - Nail File Guide.

This method requires the most effort out of all the methods to remove a gel manicure at home, it is the least recommended, but it can save you if you don't have any other equipment or products to remove it at home.

Choose which way to remove a gel manicure at home

• If you just want to change the nail polish and are wearing a structured gel manicure - do this if your gel structure application is still strong and not peeling off, usually within a week of latest application.

• In this removal you are only removing the top most part of the manicure - the tinted gel polish itself, leaving a structured gel product on your nails (usually a clear / nude / pink layer of rubber base or builder gel).

• This type of removal can only be done by filing off the gel polish layer, so you can remove the gel polish with an electronic nail file or regular hand file.

• After this you can do whatever nail art design or nail polish you want to change up to. Better done only in the first week or two of hte manicure, while the cuticle isn't too far from the nail growth.

Structured gel nails with and without the top gel polish layer and top coat.

• If you want to keep the current structure but your nail grew out from the cuticle so you need a fill - do this a few weeks after your structured gel manicure or nail extension manicure. In this method you are filing off all gel polish and designs, as well as the top most part of the structured gel on your nails. Look well for any lifting of the product, if any is found file if off.

• If want to get it all off and keep your nails clean, or start off completly fresh from bare nails. By the way, if you've been wearing gel manicures non stop for more than 8 months now (no judging here!) you should consider giving your nails a cycle of growth without any overlays, so they can breath fresh oxygen and remain strong and healthy. You wouldn't build a house on a shaky foundation, so no use extending a weak nail.

E-file and hand file techniques work well for all use cases, but the soak off method is extra useful when you just want to be free of it all and you have some soak off product on your nails.