Had to pick between LED and UV lamps for my gel nails setup...

I was setting up my home studio about 3 months ago and got stuck deciding between an LED lamp and a UV lamp. I went with the LED because it cures gels in 30 to 60 seconds versus the UV's 2 to 3 minutes. At first I thought it was great until I noticed my top coat wasn't fully hardening on some clients with thicker layers. Turns out LED doesn't penetrate as deep for certain brands of gel, which I learned the hard way after a redo on 4 clients last week. Has anyone else run into this issue and found a workaround for thicker gel applications?

3 comments

3 Comments

thomas.parker25d ago

Double check what wattage your LED lamp is. A lot of the cheaper ones are only 6-12 watts but you really need at least 36-48 watts to cure those thicker builder gels or top coats. I had the same issue with my first lamp and switching to a higher wattage one fixed it completely. Also some brands just don't work well with LED so maybe try a hybrid gel that's made for both lamp types.

willow11421d ago

Ugh this is too real, I once bought a lamp that was basically a fancy nightlight and wondered why my nails looked like sad, sticky blobs. Maybe it's just me but I think the wattage fairy is definitely real and she hates our wallets. Good to know about the hybrid gels though, that's probably the lazy girl solution I need.

the_piper24d ago

Totally agree with @thomas.parker on the wattage thing. My friend actually bought this super cheap lamp off Amazon and it was only 9 watts, her gel top coat was still sticky after 2 minutes. She swapped to a 48 watt one and it cured perfect.