Why did my old boss swear that LED curing lamps were a scam? I just tried one on 12 sets of nails
My first salon boss in Dayton told me gel polish only cures right under a UV bulb and that LED lights were a gimmick that would leave tacky layers. I bought the cheap one anyway and ran it on 12 sets of nails over two weeks at my own station. Every single set came out hard, no tacky layer, and my clients stopped complaining about the 2 minute wait. The only catch is you cannot use it with the old non LED gels, they just sit there wet. So who else got told this same thing early on, and did your lamp actually hold up after a few months?
Got told the exact same thing back in 2009 when I started. My mentor said the LED lamps were junk and only the big UV boxes worked. Bought a $60 LED lamp to test and it cured the newer gels just fine every single time. The trick is matching the lamp to the gel system, not just grabbing any polish off the shelf. Old school gels need UV because their photoinitiators won't react to the LED wavelength, that part your boss was right about. Mine held up for about 8 months of heavy use before the bulbs got weak and cure times crept up. For the price you just replace the whole lamp at that point.