The Blurb:
BeautyWorksWest, launched in 2005, aims to combine science and beauty techniques to keep you feeling your best at all times. The science is most evident in their cutting-edge skincare and anti-ageing treatments, but as a whole the treatment rooms and equipment also feel sleek and sophisticated—appropriately they call themselves a medi-spa rather than a salon.
Gel nails are billed as a non-damaging method of strengthening and protecting the natural nail while also enabling your manicure to last longer. Painted on the nail in gel layers that are each hardened with a UV light, you can then wear polish on top that can be replaced (with an acetone-free remover) independent of the gel layer. They claim to remain ‘chip free for up to three weeks’, but are high-maintenance in their own way, requiring the gel to be filled in at the cuticle every ten days to two weeks.
The Process:
I arrived, unfortunately true to form, a little late for the start of my appointment. Luckily the staff were more than accommodating and switched around the order of my treatments.
Led to a studio at the end of the hall, my nails were immediately started upon, with buffing, shaping and trimming galore, to get them into shape for the application of the gel layer on top of the natural nail base. The whole (90-minute!) process is a fairly extended one, with thorough drying periods under the UV lamp in between each layer of gel applied to nails—and even once that’s done, there’s still the polish to apply on top!
However, it does make a difference; it felt like having little shields covering each of my nails for the first day or so, after which I didn’t notice it any more. My notoriously breakable nails seemed to appreciate its presence, though, as they lasted immaculate through three days of festival dirt and being used as off-the-cuff screwdrivers.
They didn’t maintain their integrity for the potential three weeks advertised, a couple peeling off from the edges one week later when I returned from the fields, but given the amount of punishment they’d endured and how often I use them in situations where a piece of metal might be more appropriate, I was impressed nonetheless.
My mesmerisingly pristine talons complete (I was convinced by brilliant white—a neutral and a bright in one), I was whisked swiftly on to my bikini wax in another discreet room on the upper floor.
It’s always encouraging to be in an obviously hygienic and efficiently professional setting when you’re lying half-naked on your back, limbs akimbo like an upturned, vulnerable beetle. My waxer was friendly yet professional too, and had a sense of humour. Talking about pain thresholds varying at different points in the month, she laughed—I had seen her eyebrows raise when she first looked at my trimmed, but rather-too-long-unattended hair—as she firmly told me that would have made no difference in this case; ‘Trust me, this would always have hurt!’
Despite those assurances it really wasn’t unpleasant, chatting as we went in the gently-lit room, and was over more quickly than I’d expected. She had pretty much sold me on laser treatments in the long term for a more lasting effect, but with waxing this good it’s almost unnecessary.
The Result:
I was pleased to note that I had no ingrowing hairs, as quite often happens with my waxes, and that regrowth was particularly minimal—the real signs of a skilled waxing; anyone can just pull out some hairs.
My nails, as I mentioned, were certainly stronger and the manicure looked great and required no maintenance for the week I had it, which was exactly what I was looking for.
The peeling of the gel nail base as soon as the end of that week was a little surprising—perhaps I cooked or painted with something that damaged its adherence?—but in reality what really puts me off is the frequency of the upkeep required even if that doesn’t happen. It was interesting to do once, but another 90 minutes every two weeks, or even only 60 for in-fills, just doesn’t ‘gel’ (groan) with my low-maintenance outlook and time-poor schedule.
However, gel nails are, if not something to add to the everyday regimen, definitely something I would consider again for festival season or a week’s holiday: to be able to confidently forget about them entirely for the week, whatever I might be doing, is worth the time and cost.
