It's rare that you'll catch me without a manicure. Whether it's gel or regular polish [1] from the salon or a quick at-home mani, I always like to have something on my nails. Here's why: first, my nails are very brittle, but when I have nail polish on, they're less likely to break; and second, my job involves me taking a lot of photos of products, more specifically holding products, and I feel like a little colour makes everything look better.
In between salon visits, I don't mind giving myself DIY manicures at home [2] and consider myself to be pretty good at them. The only problem is they chip so easily that it can start to feel like a waste of my time to even paint my nails in the first place. That's when I started looking into at-home gel manicure kits [3] and came across the cutest one I've seen thus far by Le Mini Macaron.
Le Mini Macaron Gel Manicure Kit
Le Mini Macaron gets its name from the macaron-shaped LED light. Unlike traditional LED lamps that are solely functional, the Le Mini Macaron Gel Manicure Kit [4] ($35) is also just really, really cute. It comes in various colours and two sizes: small, which allows for curing one finger at a time, and large, for your entire hand. (I have the small pink lamp.) It's powered by a USB plug so you can take it on the go and even plug it into your laptop to use.
While the gel kits come with a bottle of polish, depending on which option you get, you can purchase more one-step gel nail polish shades separately. I typically stick to the same shades for my fingers — red in the fall and winter and light pink in the spring and summer. The Rose Créme [5] ($12), Fairy Floss [6] ($12), and Pomegranate [7] ($12) shades are my favourites.
For a DIY [8] mani, you start by applying an ultrathin coating of polish and curing it in the LED lamp for 30 seconds; you know your time is up when the lamp auto shuts off. After you repeat that on each finger, you can assess how many coats you want to do. Personally, I like doing two or three if the colour is super light. You may think curing one finger at a time would take a while, but the 30 seconds go by fast, and you can start painting the next finger while the one before it dries. My favourite part: the polish is quick drying, so there's no waiting around and fanning your hands frantically to keep from smudging.
The gel manicure lasts the standard one to one-and-a-half weeks, depending on how rough you are on your hands, and is practically chip proof. What more could you need?
