Nail shellac vs acrylic... Why I prefer shellac!

I used to get acrylics all the time. And while they're nice if you're getting them for nail length, they're very damaging to your real nail! I used to keep my acrylics for about two months until my real nails grew so long that I could just get acrylic over my natural nail and I wouldn't need tips. The down fall to this, is that once you're sick of having a thick icky plastic feeling substance stuck on your nails, it leaves your nails thin and flimsy and forces you to cut them and start their healing process. (At least for me.) Which takes weeks. AND! In my experience, acrylics can also look worse after a fill is you have a french tip and the fill shows. You obviously wouldn't have this problem if you had a solid color but I just thought I'd throw that in!

Shellac on the other hand, while it takes just as long as getting acrylics and costs the same, it's as simple as getting your nails painted! Not sure what shellac is? It's basically a hybrid between a gel and a nail polish. The natural nail isn't distressed before application. When it's time for a new application, the Shellac polish is just soaked off in pure acetone. It's supposed to last about two weeks.

In my experience, it's pretty delicate on your nails! It looks and feels more natural, and for me, lasted a little over a week longer than I was told it should and about one week to two weeks longer than acrylics would before they needed filled. (For me anyway! My nails grow really fast!) The reason being is that shellac is so thin and simple that you could simply add a clear coat over it to fill in the growth area and it looks great again! When you would normally have to pay about $15 for a fill with acrylics.

Your probably wondering what the down side to shellac is and there's actually a few. For one, you can't get tips with it. So basically you can get it to help grow your natural nails, or if you're like me, to keep your already long nails from breaking or chipping. You also can't get shellac filled like you can acrylics. So even though you could be saving money on the fill, in order to keep your shellac you'll have to pay the same price as acrylics every two-three weeks to have them completely redone. BUT! I take my shellac off at home on my own. And I don't know if it's because the shellac was protecting my nails from damage for weeks or what, but my nails are always super strong afterward! So I'm able to keep my length without them!

One thing, in my opinion, acrylic does have on shellac is that you can change your nail color if you wanted to. (Unless of course, you got white tips.) But with shellac, the color is applied between coats so you can't really change it. And I never keep my nails one color longer than 2-3 days. So if you're like me and want to give shellac a try, my advice to you is for you to just get the plain shellac coasts on your nails and ask them to paint over that! I haven't tried this yet but I plan to in the future!

All in all, I prefer shellac because it looks and feels better, isn't damaging on my nails, helps me grow my nails without them breaking, and my nails aren't flimsy after the shellac is taken off! :)

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