Soaking Off Acrylics

As many of you might know, taking off acrylic nails the right way is a long and tedious process.  In the past I would always rip them off because of this, even though I fully knew the proper way to take them off was to soak them in acetone.  Every time I did that I would regret it because my nail beds would hurt for about a week afterwards.  This time I decided that I was definitely taking the time to take them off the right way.

Here is my process:  

First you have the supplies - pure acetone, a container (I wouldn't recommend using the bowl manicures are done with, the acetone started to eat the plastic - use a glass one!), cuticle oil, metal cuticle pusher, file, 4 way buffer, cotton pads, hand towel (not pictured).  (PS - didn't use the q-tips)

Here is what my nails looked like before soaking.  Before you begin soaking,  I would recommend putting some cuticle oil or cream on your finger tips around your nails, so the acetone doesn't dry them out.

Once you put your finger tips in the bowl, place a towel over the top, this helps keep the smell down.

I soaked my nails for about 15 minutes and the acrylic started to come off.

Every 15 minutes use your pusher to scrape off the acrylic that is soft.  I used the flat end of this pusher.  Make sure you do it one nail at a time and leave the others soaking, because they will start to harden as soon as they hit the air.

Here is a better picture of the acrylic that is coming off.

After about an hour soaking the acrylic was fully off and my nails looked like this.

I'm super impatient at times and was sick of soaking off my nails after an hour of soaking the first hand.  I had saw that a company makes acrylic soak off wraps, which are essentially a thick cotton pad on a square of aluminum foil.  I decided to try to make my own with what I had on hand and see how it worked.

This is what I used.  The cotton from round cotton pads you can get at Sally's.  They have a little plastic tab on the back so you can take off polish without getting your manicure messed up.  I cut the pads and aluminum squares to fit my fingers.

Soak the pads in acetone, place it on your nail, and wrap your finger tip in foil.

This is what your nail should look like after about 15 min.  

Do the same thing with this method as you do the other.  Every 15 min scrape off the acrylic one finger at a time.  Put foil wrap back on (can reuse wrap a few times).  

This method seemed to take about half the time as soaking it in a bowl did.  I would recommend trying this method.

Here is what my nails looked like after I filed them down with a crystal file, used a 4 way buffer (lightly on my nails since they were already a bit thinner), and put a coat of strengthener on them.

I left my nails square to try to give them a bit more strength.  They weren't much thinner than they usually were, so I left them a bit longer and just put strengthener on it.  Sadly, they have started to rip again at the nail  line like they always do.  I plan on leaving them for a few more days and trying out a gel overlay on them.

Hope this helps some of you that might have acrylics on and want to take them off.

Thank you for reading!