How To Do Gel x Nails Like A Pro *Advanced* Nail Art | Step-By-Step Tutorial

Welcome to another Gelix tutorial. I'm so excited for today because you guys were able to pick the design on my Instagram story. I gave you guys three design options and this was the most highly voted design so we're gonna get straight into it. I'm just sanitizing and dehydrating my nails. Make sure that you have pushed back your cuticles or trimmed them. I also wanted to mention that the gorgeous girls oil their cuticle shirts are only going to be up for three more days so if you guys are really interested in getting this top i recommend going to the website and checking it out also if you guys enjoy all of these tutorials and want to find a way to support me as a small business this is a great way to do that so i'll put the link up here and also down below. I am using the Appraise Stiletto in natural today and also in the medium length. This is one of my favorite tips to use after sizing them and before applying them. I always make sure to buff and etch the inside of the extension. You're doing the same prep that you would do on your natural nail onto the extension and once it has that nice scratch and texture we can go in with our gel nail glue and apply them. My natural nails are pretty long so there are times when the gel nail glue doesn't meet the free edge completely. Then in that case I flip my hand over and then I just pour some more nail glue under the nail just so that all of the gaps are sealed. You really don't want to leave any bubbles or gaps in the extension or else moisture and air and water can get in there and cause you to have greenies over the next few weeks so make sure that every single surface of your nail plate is covered and yeah this is going to take practice so have patience you can always fill in the gaps with some gel here i'm using my eight millimeter liner brush to do this task if you guys haven't checked out the pro nail brush collection yet go check out my website. It's a six brush collection that supports the entire process of Gel-X and also Builder Gel. So if you guys want to get into nail art and increase the quality of your at-home nails, this is the perfect investment. Anyways, here I am buffing the extension again after curing it for a full 60 seconds. Make sure that you cure each coat of gel that you apply for at least 60 seconds into the big lamp. But here I am using my 240 grit sanding band and adding texture again. Now I'm going in with my Erika's ATA tapered barrel bit and I'm going at a pretty high speed so that this can be a smooth process. I'm going just around the cuticle area where the extension meets the natural nail. Obviously doing this step makes the nails look a lot more cleaner and more professional looking so it is definitely for aesthetic purposes but the biggest difference that you're going to notice when doing this step is the retention of your nails. They're not going to lift around the cuticle area anymore if you do this step of blending it in and then also applying acetone around that area which I'm going to be doing after this. Now we're finally getting into the gel application. I'm going in with a very thin layer of base coat and obviously cleaning up as I go the amount of times I need to clean up because my application is never perfect. So I really love my acetone and cleanup brush combo. I'm making sure to keep this coat really light and really thin and curing that for 60 seconds. Now I'm going in with my paint and pat palette. I'm gonna just fog up that line where you can see my natural nail. I really just want to fog it up so that I only need to go in with one coat of a nude base coat. This is just a little hack that I saw on TikTok. Instead of going in with two to three coats of nude base gel, I'm just gonna go in with my patting gel and fog up that line so that I only need one coat of it. One of my favorite nude gels to use is from Rareism. I have a whole pinned post on my Amazon storefront dedicated to just nude colors. Since I am obsessed with getting the right nude shades, this is definitely one of my favorites. Now we're going to get started with adding some color. I'm going in with this really beautiful shade of cherry red, applying two coats of this on the pinky. Grabbing my 16 millimeter French liner brush, I'm drawing a straight line across my index and just filling that gap in with the red polish. You don't have to be too concerned about the line being super straight since we're going to be going in with the bangle 3D designs later. One of the hardest things actually is to get really symmetrical polka dots and I mess up all the time so you're going to see me clean up a lot But I like to do the dots on the bottom and the top of the nail and then fill in the gaps It helps me measure the dots a lot more accurately We're gonna repeat the same process on the index finger and just kind of tightly squeeze in those polka dots We're gonna cure that for 60 seconds. And now I'm going in with some foil gel. This is a Japanese brand I think it's only available on the Japanese Amazon but there are tons of foil gel options online any of them really work so you're gonna apply a thin coat of this on the thumb and the middle finger and I'm gonna cure it for two minutes so instead of the regular one minute we're gonna do two minutes I bought these Amazon foils in bulk from AliExpress once and the quality of them don't really have a difference I've tried so many different brands, it's more about curing the foil gel and pressing the foil into every corner so that you are not missing a large patch. I either use my fingers or I also use this silicone tool that I have to really press into all of the corners and you can lift up the foil and see what is not sticking on the nail and just retry again and again. It's kind of like stamping a sticker onto the nail, so this is going to take some patience and practice. Now that the lace is applied beautifully, we're going to move on to the ring finger. I'm applying a very thin coat of non-wipe top coat. The reason why I'm top coating this is so that I can just seal in the nude base coat and that I could do a matte textured nail art on top. It's all going to make sense at the end. Now I'm going in with my 3D white solid gel and making some petals for the 3D flower. I'm just making five little beads and shaping them each into a petal using my silicone tool. Also, side note, if you guys know the original creator artist for this nail design, please tag her in the comments or let me know because I only got this inspo from Pinterest and there was no tag whatsoever so I'd really appreciate that. I'm not showing you guys each time I cure a layer but I try to cure each petal individually that way they hold their shape and they don't start melting away as I work on the other petals so I definitely recommend curing or flash curing between each single step. Once you cure that for a full 60 seconds I'm going in with that same cherry red shade that we used on the other fingers and i'm covering each petal very carefully you guys can even cure this individually so once you finish covering one petal flash cure it for at least 30 seconds and then move on to the next one because you really don't want the gel to be melting and like going into all the other areas that you don't want it to you always want to keep it clean and crisp after curing everything i'm going in with the paint and pat palette again i'm using a darker shade and just applying it at the center of the flower to add some depth this is totally optional it's just i'm just being a little extra anyways i'm going in with the matte top coat just top coating the petals and just the flower to give it this matte texture finish and then i'm going in with some water droplets for the finishing touches i'm using just non-wipe clear hard gel here and I'm also using my 12 millimeter long liner brush perfectly made for the hard gel application. I'm just going to finish off this nail because I already top coated everything so we're going in with some rhinestone glue and I'm just adding three little gold beads in the center and keeping it simple. Now I'm going in with some matte top coat on the rest of the nails that I need to do chrome isolation. I really make sure that I get this matte top coat on every corner every inch of the nail so that the chrome does not stick or leave a mess. I'm going back in with that solid gel. I just created these string shapes and I'm just putting them onto the nail, cutting off each edge with this sharp tool that I have. It's actually like a cuticle pusher but on the other end it's almost like a knife. But I just try to make sure that the string is symmetrical and even in thickness and we're just going to repeat this step for all of the other nails. For the middle finger, before I cure the solid gel, I'm just putting in and pushing the diamond a little bit into the nail so that the ring is almost like one piece if that makes sense. Also guys, I'm looking for a darker shade of this solid gel that you can chrome easily. I know that this solid gel that I'm using here from Lime Girl is stated as a non-wipe but when I go in and chrome it the chrome just kind of wipes off super easily so they don't last and the shine isn't as great as well so if you guys have a product recommendation for a solid gel that I could easily chrome let me know or else I have to probably make my own product and put you guys on it but that's one thing that is super inconvenient with solid gel. Nothing is really chromable directly so here I am going in with my 12 millimeter liner brush and some non-wipe top coat and applying it around that ring area. I'm trying to avoid the diamond because I want the diamond to really shine and not be gold so we're just applying it on the white parts. Once I've made sure that everything is cured, I'm going in with my Cocoist chrome powder and just rubbing that into the solid gel and it gives this beautiful shine because of the non-wipe top coat that we applied. After you've chromed it, you can just wipe off the other powder with a sponge or like a brush and here I am going in with my Born Pretty rhinestone glue. I added some black into it so I customized the shade but i'm applying these little swirls on the thumb as a finishing detail i see a lot of people struggling to do this and basically the key trick with this is first to have the right brush a mid length liner brush and also second to not overthink it you just want to let the brush do its thing so maybe in the future i can do a full hard gel tutorial for you guys but anyways it's time to add the frosting to add the gems so we're doing two bands of this diamond and gold ring. When you need to apply a very symmetrical line of charms I recommend going in with hard gel instead of just regular rhinestone glue and securing that in place because if you just apply rhinestone glue it's too runny. The consistency of the gel is too runny that the diamonds just start slipping and sliding off the nail. So that's what I did here and everything is kind of secured in place. I'm making sure that it's straight and then curing it into the big lamp. I also just love the details of the charm assemble...assemblement? I don't know if that's a word, but I love using these gold beads. It just makes the nails look so much more extravagant and beautiful. And here I'm top coating finally all the nails with my Kokoyist non-wipe ultra glossy top coat oh my gosh that's such a long title but that's my favorite top coat to use and i will warn you guys it is pretty hard to top coat 3d nail designs you have to be really patient and get into every corner and crevice and i do recommend curing each finger individually anyways here is the finished look i really enjoyed making this tutorial for you guys. Thank you for each and every one of you who voted which nail design you wanted me to do. It was super fun and I'll see you guys in my next tutorial.