To do your own at-home gel manicure, you need a UV/LED lamp, polish, removal products, and nail/cuticle/filing tools. I'm all about kits, so I found all of these in a total of 4 purchases, plus a visit to the store for acetone and rubbing alcohol.
1. UV/LED lamp - $40
This was challenging to find because the prices for these range from $10 to $300. I finally decided on this one due to its full size, LED lights (LED is better than UV) and long list of positive ratings and reviews. My finding: This is perfect. Its lights are strong, the housing is durable with a real metal base attached by magnets, and the operation is simple with clearly-labeled buttons on the back. I was able to cure my entire hand in it, I didn't need to do thumbs separately.
There are a ton of brands out there and I've tried many at the salons. I wanted to start small though without investing hundreds of dollars right off the bat. Modelones has a lot of good reviews and I just wanted something that worked. You also need both a base coat and a top coat for gel manicures to work, so I found this kit that has 16 colors AND the top/base coats. The glitter colors are too sheer for my liking, but I think they were probably intended to be layered over another color. I'll try that next time. Otherwise, they cured hard and went on smoothly. I wish the brushes were rounded like some brands do, but these worked just fine for a budding at-home manicurist. The box is really nice too.
I had gel polish on from my $85 manicure 3 weeks ago (😖) so of course, I needed to remove it. I decided I wanted to do foils instead of the reusable plastic clips that hold a cotton ball on your nail, just for simplicity. I also needed a triangle cuticle peeler and cuticle pusher, as well as nail files and buffer. This had all of it, and there was even a nice little case for the two metal cuticle tools. The files don't have labels on them so I had to just test out what each side was for, and I wish there were a 240-grit one. They are also extremely cushy which is hard when I just wanted to file a small bit on the side, but they work just fine for starting out. I'll probably add on some more specialty files as I go, but this kit is great as a starter.
4. Pump bottles - $7.45 (optional)
For the acetone and rubbing alcohol, I decided I wanted press-down pump bottles for ease of application, like what my local salon uses. These ones worked great and they actually work. I used my label maker to mark which bottle was which. These aren't required, but they've made things a lot easier, especially with using rubbing alcohol at the end of the manicure process.
5. Cotton pads - $14 (optional)
You can use whatever you want, but I already had these on hand. I use White Rabbit cotton pads for all of my other skincare stuff, they're a K-beauty brand. They come in large folded sheets so I just cut them into quarters for my gel manicures. They're lint free and don't waste product like cotton balls do, so I'll continue using them. They're a little pricey at first but I've had the same box for like 6 months and use them with abandon, and the box is still mostly full. (note Sokoglam.com was out of stock when I posted this, hopefully they'll get more in soon).
6. Acetone and rubbing alcohol - $5
To remove the gel polish from your previous manicure, you need acetone, which I got for $4 at my drugstore. You also need rubbing alcohol to clean the nails before you apply the base coat and after you cure the top coat, which I got for $1 at the dollar store.
And that's all you need for your own at-home gel manicure. Total: $106.45 (plus tax).
