Stand Out Nails With Sally Hansen Insta-Gel! Review and Swatches

As you all know I absolutely love Gel nails and I love creating designs with my gel polish. Not all of us can create free-hand designs on our nails, let alone have them all match. So how do you get perfectly designed Gel nails without paying a fortune at the salon?

With the Sally Hansen Salon Insta-Gel Starter kit! I love that this kit is so easy to use! Unlike other gel systems this kit only has really only 2 steps to get a beautiful manicure that all your friends will be jealous of! Each kit comes with a mini LED lamp, Gel cleansing cloths, 16 Gel polish strips, Gel top coat, a file, and a manicure stick. The starter kit comes in 3 different colors: Red My Lips (red), Wine Not ( shimmery dark red), and Shell We Dance (light pink).

This kit is super easy to use! First you lightly buff your natural nail, but make sure to LIGHTLY buff your nail otherwise you can damage it. Then you wipe your nails with the gel cleanser (I like to go over each nail twice to make sure that they are completely clean). Next you take the strips out of the package and stick them on your nails according to size ( I find this to be the hardest part because of the shape of my nails). After that you add the top coat over the stickers and cure under the LED light for 30 seconds. Last but not least, use the last cleanser wipe and remove the tacky layer off the top. Viola! You now have salon quality gel nails at home!

If you are like me and the colors available in the kit are not your style they have lots of other colors and even pre-made designs! So of course that’s where I run to! I received 3 different strips, two of which I am going to show you in this review (the other I’m sure you will see soon!).

First up is Pretty ‘N Poppy.

One of the main reasons I love the Insta-Gel kit is that you get everything you need when you buy a new polish. You don’t need to constantly buy refill kits of the necessities which can be very pricey after a while. In every kit there are 16 nail strips, Gel cleansing wipes, Top coat, a nail file, and manicure stick. Sound familiar? It’s pretty much everything included in the original kit but the LED lamp!

I was very surprised with how easy they are to put on! With other Gel kits it can take forever to do each layer, but this was simple and fast! After some bad experiences with nail strips I half expected these to turn out horrible, but they turned out perfect!

In the light

Indoors

I love how shiny they are, and I love how easy it was to get a perfect design! I have spent hours before painting my nails with Gel polish so I was very happy with my results! On the box it says to put one coat of top coat, but for these pictures I put 2 coats. I like my nails a little thicker so that they don’t break so I added 2 more coats later on.

Next I decided to use the Amazing Lace Nail Strips. I absolutely love the way these ones turned out. They have a gold color for the base and a realistic black lace design on top.

Outside

Indoors

This is one design that I have been wanting to do for a long time! I have seen some simple lace designs that I thought might be easy enough, but I just don’t think I have the patience to do a free hand lace design without messing it up. So I was very excited when I saw this product.

Tips for using Sally Hansen Insta-Gel Strips

• LIGHTLY buff your nails! You want to make sure you get the whole surface area of your nail, but if you are too rough or file too much you can ruin your nail.
• Make sure to clean your nails with the cleanser, like I said earlier I like to do this twice to make sure they are clean.
• Stretch the strips to the end of your nail and then file off. This way the strip is stuck to your nail. If it is not stuck to the tip of your nail it will peel off.
• Make sure to keep the clear polish off the edges and cuticles of your fingers. If you get the polish on your skin it will cause lifting of your nails.
• The clear coat is pretty thin so make sure you go slowly and take your time putting the clear coat on so that you don’t get any on your skin.

I highly recommend this product to anyone looking for salon quality nail designs that you can do at home! I loved the way these nails turned out and I loved how easy they were to apply!

You can find Sally Hansen Insta-Gel Products on their website here, or at you local retailer!

What do you think of these products? Let us know in the comments below!

**Disclaimer** I was in no way paid, or obligated to give a positive review, or a review at all for this company. If you would like to read my full disclaimer for reviews you can find it here .