How To Remove & Reuse Press On Nails The Right Way - Peel Off Method

Hi guys, welcome back to my channel. Today I wanted to do an updated how I remove and reuse my press-on nails. Basically the whole process from removing a set, cleaning the glue off in case you want to re-wear them, and storing them. This is the set that we'll be removing today. They lasted 15 days before the first nail came off, which was this one, but then today I actually also lost this nail. So I have eight nails to remove. And honestly, the wear on them is pretty good. Like this is all the cuticle growth from two weeks. not bad and for these ones there's like barely any lifting on any of these so i'll definitely be interested to see how easily or difficult this removal is and as for some context on how i apply my nails i personally always use a peel-off base gel and an air dry glue it's really important if you're going to wear press on nails that you use an air dry glue with them do not use a uv curing gel glue please because it cannot cure safely through the opacity of the painted press-on meaning that a lot of that gel may be undercured. So just a note on safety, my personal favorites are the Gello Gello peel-off base gel and the Lucanus Pudding Nail Glue. These are both available on Sweeten Nail Supply in case anybody would like to pick them up for yourself. However, just a note to say that for this specific application, I did use the Fala Pure Peel peel-off base gel just because I wanted to test how it works for retention purposes. I got 15 days out of it before the first nail came off, so two weeks, about two weeks, which I say is really good especially for this length of of nail. Each of these peel off base gels have their own remover so this is the Gello Gello one which you may be very familiar with this bottle. This is like a ride or die. Everybody loves this one. I like it. It's definitely more of like a acetone based remover I find so if you are going to use this one please make sure that you don't have it on plastic or anything that it can melt because that has happened to me before. Or another type of remover that you may come across is these more like water-based ones which is like this Valor Pure Pure one which is the one I will be using today just because I'm using the Valor Pure Peel Off Base Gel. Additionally I have a bowl of warm water here with like three to four pumps of soap in it and the last thing you need for the removal is cuticle sticks. Now the Gello Gello set comes with these wooden cuticle sticks. They're fine. I don't like these ones though. I find that the wooden part it can splinter, become more dull and just generally more susceptible to kind of scratching my nail so I really recommend to get some of these plastic ones please and use this side of it as well. They're just much smoother and they kind of slot underneath this way better than the wooden ones. Okay now to start the removal. What I always do first is break the seal on the nail. I take this plastic side like this and I will basically not harshly at all just introduce a little gap lifting up any of the dried glue that is around this edge and because these nails have been on for 16 days at this point it should be pretty easy to do. You definitely don't want to force it though so kind of like go around the edge as much as you can around this semi-circle here then just repeat that on all the nails. Oh you can see this one's already starting to lift a lot even if they are starting to lift like that I try to avoid just popping them off at this stage and then I just do the other hand as well. When I do my removals I always do them at the same time. Oh actually I'm gonna set a timer so that we can see how long this removal takes. I always go a little slower with my non-dominant hand just because I feel like I'm more likely to accidentally... what's the word? Fall? Not fall but like just glitch. Hopefully you can see a lot of this like dried glue. it's kind of just popping off popping away which is exactly what we want then at this stage i usually don't introduce any of the remover yet i just soak my nails in the bowl of water trying to kind of push down lightly on these tips to lift the cuticle side more so that i can just introduce some water into that gap this is basically because my method i do peel off base gel then air dry glue so the actual part that I'm getting rid of first is the air dry glue. Usually I find water helps to break that down better than the remover. And when I soak these I usually soak for like two minutes at a time and once my nails are in the water I will like also do this. I'll just like put a little bit of pressure kind of like pushing a little bit on the edge just to help water get into that gap. Especially on my thumbnails, ring and pinky nails because I find those nails are always the most stubborn. You can also kind of like do this a little bit. you can see there there's water and there's like a slight lifting oh that one's already really lifted this one as well the more like the bigger the gap that you can introduce at the beginning the easier it will come off generally now i'm going to go in with the Pure Peel this one you can see has a super watery consistency so i'm very interested in how this is going to work my experience with the Krya remover which was also really water-based was not good so i'm hoping this one will be better again when I apply this I lift I push down on the edge so that I can hopefully target it into that gap and I hold it there and I try to let it like drop down this one's definitely like a lot more liquidy than the jello jello so it's dripping everywhere then again once I've applied the remover to everything I give it like I give it like another two to three minutes the longer you wait at this step I feel like the easier they come off I'm a little impatient I'm not gonna lie. I don't put my nails back in the water though for that time because I feel like the water dilutes the peel off remover and sometimes as I wait I'll also kind of try to lift the more stubborn nails as well. One thing that I find really helps with removal is trying to get up as much of this side part as possible like by basically sliding this down very slowly to separate from the sides of the nail because the way that we want to remove these nails is not just popping them off we actually want to lift them side wall to side wall you should hear like little clicks when the glue is like coming up as well oh you can see these two are so ready to come off but i'm not going to force them i'm going to soak these in the water for another one or two minutes. I'm gonna go in with some more remover. I never try to do any pop-offs on the first remover. I always do at least like two drops of remover. You can see these two are like so close but if I try to force them it might rip up the free edge or it might cause damage on the free edge because it's like not fully ready to come off. And some people do ask me why do i do this method if it takes like almost as long as filing nails off with a e-file or like soaking off it's because i a can keep the nails like like i don't damage the nails i can just pop them off and then i can store them or if you do want to rewire them then you can rewire them using this method oh there we go that one's and then it just comes off like that never force it that's like the key to damage free removal is not forcing the removal Oh my god, beautiful. One down, eight to go. And like I said as well, you kind of want to do sidewall to sidewall when you remove if you can. So that's why I'm kind of going down this motion so that when I take it off, it hopefully pops off like this rather than like this. And there we go. I fear those were probably going to be the easiest two and now the rest are all going to be really stubborn. And then basically usually the rest of my removal is a lot of repetition. So I will go in between applying remover, check which nails are ready to lift the most, apply remover to them, and then move on to the nails that are a bit more stubborn, apply remover to them, and then go back to the ones that are lifting the most. So I can kind of optimize my time, do it the most efficiently, while slowly working at the ones that are being stubborn. And it also gives the remover time to work as well. and if they're being really stubborn then I will also do water soaks as well but it just depends on the set. Oh shoot, I did not mean to do that. I feel like that probably ripped up, shoot. This one feels really stubborn around this area so I'm not gonna force it. Okay, this one I'm so glad it didn't rip up my nail. I thought this one was gonna be really stubborn because basically you can see like, even though I've worn this set for two weeks, the nail is still really short because I actually didn't apply this on like a lot of free edge. was actually like very short so i was kind of worried but no that one came off okay i'm not sure if you can like really tell how much of like a lip of glue there is here like it was kind of lifting over the free edge a lot again i feel like this one's i could probably pop off but i feel like i shouldn't so i'm gonna soak this in water and then see if i can remove it or like not remove it but see if it just comes off on its own when it's in the water sometimes that helps as well I find that is a really good method for avoiding damage. Can like keep working at it in the water. Very gently though. And it came off. And I'm gonna do the same. I'm gonna soak these ones in water for a bit longer. If the glue is being really stubborn, sometimes I roll this pointy side down as well to see if that helps me kind of lift it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. It depends. Yeah, I feel like that one was stuck to my free edge. So it like pulled a little bit off, which to be honest that's fine because I'm gonna cut that down anyway. Then we just have one left. Because I told you it's always my thumbs, ring or pinkies are the most difficult. I feel like it's because the fit between these are the best. There we go and again I think that one took some of my free edge with it. Not too much so it's fine. That's basically why you don't want to take it off like this way because if you take off this way i find it's more likely that it will rip your free edge with it okay so here's what my nails look like i'm gonna dry my hands off one minute and for time that took me okay so the stopwatch says 40 minutes i kind of forgot to pause it so i probably take like at least five minutes of this so i'd say removal took me about 30 to 35 minutes just rinsed my hands with water so let's do a very brutally honest damage check my left hand honestly not bad. I feel like this is way less damage than I've had with the Gelcare peel off base gel so I'm actually really impressed. The only part on these nails is this pinky which was very stubborn so I'm not surprised but to say that it's like very minor and mostly at the free edge as well so that will grow out very quickly. Then the thumbnail again not bad maybe some minor damages on this free edge but this looks good then my right hand again i'm not mad at it i'm actually very impressed this ring is probably the most little specks here and there and then the index as well this index popped off from what i remember so i'm not surprised and then the thumb yeah this one is well it's like not bad it's just not good there's like a rip here which is not great and then some minor damage up here but honestly all in all i'm not mad at it especially because like a lot of these marks in my experience they will just generally disappear when i rehydrate use cuticle oil um and they just kind of like settle over time like obviously it's minor damage you can't fix it you can't heal it but does tend to kind of just disappear i find and smooth out i guess that's the word it's like so yeah honestly i would say i'm really impressed with the Valor Pure Peel peel off base gel and remover i think this might be my new go-to peel off base gel set i might actually prefer this to the Jello Jello because this is far less damage than I've ever had with Jello Jello. And just a note on these as well, everything is available at Sweetie Nail Supply including the Valor set, Jello Jello set and the Lucanus Pudding Nail Glue. This video is not sponsored but if you would like to support me then you can use my code HOPE10 to save 10% at checkout. Thank you so much if you do use that and I will have everything linked in the description as well. I'm gonna quickly cut my nails just so that they're looking a bit more presentable but usually i don't do like in-depth nail care immediately after i remove a set because the moisture balance of my nails is currently thrown off because i've been a wearing press-ons and then just submerging them in water and remover so please never dig under your nails or clean anything under your nails just after removing a set because this is still like really moist it's more susceptible to onycholysis in this stage if you dig under there so i'm just gonna cut and then very quickly file i'll do proper nail prep for my cuticles and everything else later and cuticle oil of course i really love the jello jello cuticle pens they're so nice especially this freesia scent it is so so nice now for cleaning and reusing the nails these are still really oily so i'm just gonna dip them in some water this is a fresh bowl of water that i've swapped out dry them off and and then I'm gonna wipe them down with an isopropyl alcohol wipe. I really like these ones for the convenience, but you can also just use isopropyl alcohol and a lint-free wipe. And just drying them off as well. To be honest, I'm mostly just drying the backs of these with the lint-free wipe so that I can show you what the glue looks like. And this is how the nails look after two weeks wear. Honestly, not bad. You could totally re-wear these if you wanted. I'll show you the close-up as well, you can see. Low-key, my nails, they last well. I really find the Mayo Glass Top Gel is really good for wear, like no yellowing, still looks really shiny and glossy, especially on the cat eye, like look at that. The only thing is I did lose some gems because I didn't sufficiently encapsulate them, so I will repair those. Then I'll show you the backsides as well. So this is how all the glue looks. It's kind of like matte in a way. You can see there's like a slight lip there, honestly Luca is putting nail glue doesn't leave too much of an uneven amount and it's actually like very smooth although you can see here that there is like a slight lip hopefully yeah i think you can see that and that amount will vary depending on the nail like this one where that nail that pinky nail is really short i have like way more of an amount there but then the actual like nail amount is like really really little because these tips actually fit my natural nail curve really well that's why like this ring as well this ring is like super super smooth there's hardly any glue there but if you do want to re-wear your press on nails that means you probably want to clean off any of those little bits of glue so this is how you can do that so to clean these i'm going to use an e-file this is the Mr Nail holo cup e-file and it goes up to 30 rpm i got this on taobao from the official mr nail taobao store in case anybody is interested I will leave that link in the description below as well along with my Superbuy sign up code and link. To clean press-on nails you really do need an e-file. I'm not gonna lie, like like I did make a short specifically on reusing and cleaning press-on nails on my Instagram. If you want to go check that out for like a short minimized very concise version of this segment. Somebody did ask me what if you don't have an e-file. I personally don't know how you could do this without an e-file. I know that there is this Buffy tool that recently came out in America which is specifically designed to clean the insides of press on so it's like this long curved file to basically file down the glue I can't get that shipped to me in the UK if they only offer US shipping so I can't say if it works or if it doesn't work I can't give you a review on that but I do feel like more people probably already own an e-file the only thing is with an e-file that I will be very transparent about is you need to know how to use an e-file do not just buy an e-file and then go ham with it especially on your natural nails please please please do research learn how to use an e-file from a reputable course before using one on your natural nails I took the Katie Barnes e-file masterclass course that is where I learned my e-file basics I am by no means a pro and I don't personally use them on my natural nails I only use this for prepping tips or cleaning tips but yeah just note on e-file safety because you can do some serious damage with an e-file on your natural nails like rings of fire wearing down the nail plate but yeah just how I use this for cleaning press on nails so I am using this with the Yogo Mayo Mango Short Cone bit I really like this because it's actually small enough to fit the insides of the pinky nails really well like this little bit here especially if you have very small pinky nails like this is size 10 and other cone bits or like sanding bits they are just way too big for this size of nail tips and last is your protection so mask gloves dust collector please get a dust collector if you're going to do this regularly I will put this on an rpm of 15 in oh it is in reverse I want it to be in forwards because I am right-handed so yeah 15 rpm forwards this is like the very lifted one here if you can see that glue there. I'm hoping this stays in focus. Essentially I will just kind of file down this area keeping it quite flat to the nail and then if you do want to clean up any of this flat area you can as well but to be honest I feel like my glue application is pretty good where I don't really get a build-up of excess glue here anymore and you can just kind of and then basically all your glue is gone. You see that there? Of course like you can keep wiping this down with isopropyl alcohol and cleaning it more as you want or as you need and if you don't want to get glue on your fingers then do wear gloves when you're doing this as well i forgot but usually i would be wearing gloves especially if you're filing gel make sure that you don't file gel onto like bare skin you shouldn't really be filing air dry glue onto dry skin either because air dry glue still contains acrylates this off and then you can see there that that's basically all gone good as new i'll also show you on this thumbnail just because this one's wider so you can see how it works here i definitely had more of a lip on this one as well yeah and that's how that thumbnail looks as well and here's just a comparison so these top ones i didn't file and then the bottom ones i did they are just a lot more smooth and it's actually very quick to file all the little lips off as well then lastly let's store them because i personally don't rewire my nails so this is what i use it is a nailist nail art book i got inspired to get this last year last summer 2025 by suzy.xxi she is an amazing nail artist but it's basically a binder book thing with these inserts in it i ordered this directly from their korean online store there are some retailers that you can get it from it's not that accessible but if you want it you can definitely make it work this is my 2026 year as As you can tell, I've not actually worn that many nails in 2026. I have sets here and then these are like practice nails or like half a set that I made. It does come with these plastic magnetic things. Whenever you get these, I always recommend sticking them on and then peeling it off when you know which direction the magnet is so that you don't accidentally put the magnet on the wrong way because it only magnetises one way. Although, I do have three sets to add into it, so it will build up a bit more. And for this, I really recommend get these white ones of these sticky strip things. The red ones are awful. And then some people also asked me what I use to stick my nails on here. This is a chopstick from Daiso with some white tack stuck on the end. Literally nothing fancy. I always like to stick these down from the pinky and the thumb first and then the middle so that I can cover these ugly metal circles. I just find this helps me map out the spacing better But I know some people also stick their thumbnails upside down to maximize space, which I also think is clever Though low-key I'll be so honest with you because these nail tips so long you can't actually really stick them on Directly on top of each other without covering them like that I don't know. I've kind of been doing this but I feel like that looks kind of weird with a full set it looks fine with these but maybe i'll just have to have them overlapping and hope that they don't accidentally jump off but yeah cute okay it's fully updated for 2026 now so we have i guess like the first half of 2026 then the second up to now when i got into more Xiao Hong Shu chinese nail art designs and then these are all just kind of like test or practice designs i'll do like a quick rundown this was the first that i made they're okay honestly this was probably the last set where i was pulling mainly from my own inspo rather than other nail inspo and it just leaves a lot to be desired when i look at it like this then set number two these are what i wore for my china korea vietnam trip and i loved them on that trip but now the dried flowers they kind of don't age well these are yellowing a lot i don't know if you can tell and also like similarly on this set I made these in May I think, the dried flowers they are crumbling wow but the rest of it is cute Then up here we have my first Xiaohongshu fairy nails, looky I love these ones so much I used the Me Gothic Peppermint Candy collection for this and that collection is so good and then my latest nails, looky I haven't worn that many nails this year but I like these, these are definitely the best ones I've made so far, they are missing the gems on them still though I'll glue those on later I'll insert the photo so you know what the set was supposed to look like, okay? And then I will learn for next time to encapsulate my gems better. And these are just some practice nails as well. When I was like kind of starting to learn Xiaohongshu designs and then like a pink version and then a practice set I really like this practice set, I just... I like the green in theory, I just didn't like the green in reality. I definitely want to recreate this though in a different color scheme. And then all the rest are from like 2025 and 2024. maybe I will do a tour of my unbox at some point, maybe not I don't know, it kind of needs organization I'm not gonna lie and that is this video done, I hope this was helpful for anybody who was curious on how I remove my nails, what the process looks like what cleaning them looks like if you want to re-wear them as well the last removal video I did was in like early 2025 so I feel like this was long overdue, hopefully it was helpful, as mentioned all the products will be linked in the description box along with any of my discount codes both for Sweety Nail Supply and Superbuy which is linked in my Linktree thank you so much if you use my codes as always please like and subscribe if you like this video, so I also have more nail art tutorials on my Instagram and TikTok at hope.jordan, all my nail art design templates and guides are in my Ko-fi shop as well please let me know any questions or thoughts in the comments as always i also have been wondering whether to do an updated how i apply my press on nails video as well because my process has changed a little bit since the last how-to guide thank you so much for watching and goodbye