Acrylic Nails

[mickeyboat]

I had acrylic overlays put on my nails for my cruise. Now I want them OFF! Has anyone ever had them taken off? Has anyone taken them off themselves? How do you do it? How bad do your real nails look and what can you do to fix them?

Thanks,

Denae

 

[Auggietina]

You can take them off by yourself. I do it all the time. I buy a solvent at WalMart that is specifically to take off acrylic nails. You soak your nails in it but does take a while for the nails to soak off.

Be prepared to have very thin brittle nails for quite some times.

Good Luck!

 

[2bemarried]

Depending on how long you've had them on...they may need to be soaked off. Just go to any nail salon and ask them for a removal. It'll cost you 10.00

If you've never had them before...you're nail beds will look pretty rough. Give them six weeks to be back to normal.

 

[mickeyboat]

Thank you both for your quick replies. I will stop by Wal-Mart tonight and "do the deed" during Survivor tonight.

Wish me luck!

Denae

 

[MScott1851]

DO NOT go to the salon and get them removed.. Those women will take a sharp flat object and slide it under the fake tip and pop it off, taking your nail with it. It took me over a year to get my nails back into shape. Soak, soak, soak. Resist the urge to peel the tips off when they get thin, too... soak those suckers til they are gone. Even then they will still be damaged underneath.

I still regret ever having acrylics...every time I am tempted I remember my pitiful little nails that were so thin it hurt..

 

[preshi]

Sally Hansen makes a good acrylic nail remover.

 

[Divamomto3]

Originally posted by mickeyboat
Thank you both for your quick replies. I will stop by Wal-Mart tonight and "do the deed" during Survivor tonight.

Wish me luck!

Denae

GASP!!!
Thanks for reminding me!!!!!!!! Oh come on..does this mean Survivor is up against my #2 fave..American Idol?? Why can't they all just stay on their right nights?? UGH

 

[Keli]

My dd Ashli just removed her tips and although her nail bed was somewhat 'damaged' looking, it's really not too bad and nothing like we were expecting. She is going to wait a while before having more tips put on but her nails aren't painful or terribly thin in the mean time.

 

[IloveDMB]

And be careful with acrylics. Not only will they make your real nails brittle, they are a hotbed for mold.

We aren't even allowed to have them in the hospital because they're have been studies about what harbors in the acrylic. Too gross for me to think about.

 

[DizMare]

Haven't tried this myself, but my hairdresser soaks hers off by filling the tips of rubber gloves with remover and wearing the gloves.

 

[poohandwendy]

Haven't tried this myself, but my hairdresser soaks hers off by filling the tips of rubber gloves with remover and wearing the gloves.

That wouldn't work. Rubber or vinyl gloves would disintegrate long before the acrylic.

Acetone is what dissolves acrylic and it does take a long time. Patience is worth it.

Yes, your nails will be weak. Get a good nail strengthener, OPI or Nailtek are great,(not a nail hardener)and make sure your nails aren't 'naked' until they have grown completely out or they will break and peel.

 

[Pinnie]

I know that there was an expose on Nails here in our area on the local news and they said that acrylics put on with MMB (?) are a lot more dangerous than ones put on without.

Generally they said the cheaper the service the bigger chance that this substance was used to put on the nails. One way to know if you have it on is if your natural nails were "thinned out" before they were put on with a drill like instrument.

pin

 

[poohandwendy]

What you are talking about is methyl methacrylate (MMA) and it is not only dangerous but illegal to use (not approved for use by the FDA).

Generally they said the cheaper the service the bigger chance that this substance was used to put on the nails. One way to know if you have it on is if your natural nails were "thinned out" before they were put on with a drill like instrument.

yep, it also has a strange odor when you file it. (but I guess you would have to be a nail tech to know the difference). It is also very hard to soak off.

 

[Pinnie]

Thanks you Poohandwendy for correcting me...I knew it had a couple of "M"s in it!!!

pin

 

[jipsy]

I have been getting acrylic nails for over 12 years. My natural nails are very thin and tend to flake off. I cannot get nail polish to stay more than a day on my natural nails. I have tried every strengthener and nail diet that comes out. I finally just gave up and stuck with acrylic. Occasionally I take a break from them to let my nails rest. Just be aware, when you soak your nails off, that whatever you are soaking them in is also soaking into your skin and possibly your blood stream, so I don't recommend doing that too often. I usually just remove the polish and continue to cut and file the nails until they have grown out, rather than soak. Yes, it doesn't look great, but it doesn't look any worse than removing them.

In the 12 years I have had acrylic, I had one instance where I got a mold/fungus under the nail. It was due to the fact that I went to a nail salon I have never been to before and they didn't use clean tools. I went to another salon, and she carefully removed the nail, applied mold/fungus killer and reapplied the nail. It stopped the growth and the mold/fungus disappeared.

I love my acrylic nails. I don't know how to function without them when I decide to let them go for awhile.

 

[bsnyder]

I've been wearing them for over 15 years, and I've never once had a fungus or mold. Like Jipsy, my natural nails are pitiful....very thin and brittle and because I bit my nails for so long, when they do grow out they grow crooked and wierdly curved.

I can't stand the way they feel when I take the acrylics off. I've only done it once, for any length of time. My nail tech talked me into taking them off for a while when I had my hysterectomy. Since I was going to be home for a while, she reasoned it wouldn't matter how bad my nails looked, and I could try to grow my real nails out. After six weeks, she agreed I should go back to the acrylics because my real nails were never going to look good.

Jipsy, I have that same problem wtih nail polish on my natural nails, they must be incredibly oily, because the polish starts chipping off immediately. With the acrylics, it never chips off.