Like any other girly girl, I love to keep up with the nail polish trends. Although I love painting my nails and experimenting with different nail polish colors, I have never done acrylic or even gel nails because of the damage they do to the nails. When I heard about the trend of “dip powder nails”, I thought I give it a go. I was intrigued by the fact that the dip powder manicure was supposed to last 3 weeks and was not nearly as damaging to your nails as acrylics and gel. A few articles later, I decided I wanted to give them a try and share my experience. Here is my very honest first experience with dip powder nails!
What I did going in to the nail salon
I chose a neutral nail color for the first time doing dip powder because you can’t go wrong with a light pink color! One of the options for dip powder nails is to add extensions to your nail (kind of like an acrylic add-on) but I decided not to do extensions, as I like my nails a shorter length. When getting my nails done, I asked the nail artist for the “square with rounded edges” nail shape, which I really loved the end result. The manicure took about an hour in total, and cost $50 (prices differ at every nail salon!)
End of Week 3 Update
I’m really impressed with how these are holding up! They look pretty much the same two weeks in, except a tiny bit of the polish chipped off when I jammed my finger. They feel like my natural nails and I’ve had no problem washing my hair or any other regular activity that could potentially damage the look of the nail color. My natural nails have grown a bit, so you can see my natural nail growing under the dip powder, but I’m not bothered by it at all. The dip lasted about 4 weeks for me so I definitely got my money’s worth.
Removal process
To be honest, the dip nail removal process was not my favorite. At the nail salon, they file down the top of your nail and then soak your nails in acetone. It took about half an hour (which I felt was a long time to remove nail polish), but my nails came out looking good and healthy. It was a time-consuming process, and by no means would I try this at home! I don’t have that kind of patience! 🙂
Overall impressions
Would I get them again? Yes for sure! I personally wouldn’t do them regularly because of the cost and removal process, but I will definitely do it again for special occasions or a vacation. I just like the freedom of changing my regular nail polish whenever I want, and they’re a bit expensive to do all the time. But overall, I genuinely loved my experience with dip powder and would recommend it to anyone!
Did it actually last 3 weeks? Could they stay longer? For sure they last 3 weeks! I took mine off right before the 4 week mark, so I think they could go longer but I wouldn’t keep them on longer than 4 weeks. They held up beautifully for the 3 weeks!
Are your nails ruined after they took the dip powder off? Not at all. My nails feel just as strong as they were before I did dip powder, which was impressive. The removal process was a bit long and extensive, but my nails were not ruined.
Rating… 10/10! I will be doing these again, and I recommend trying them for yourself. Although the removal process was not ideal, I was obsessed with the way the nails looked and held up throughout the week. Overall, I say they are definitely worth the hype!