Broadway Brush-On Gel Nail Kit Review

After I got a full acrylic set done for my best friend's wedding this past July, I vowed to never set foot in a Nail Chop Shop ever again.  You know the kind of nail salon I mean.  The ones where you leave with your nail bed almost filed down to your skin, your cuticles bleeding, and the gnawing feeling that it's going to take months to get your nails back to their once healthy state.  But hey, for now that fresh french manicure you're rocking looks great and it only cost you $20.  Well, I couldn't take it anymore, and since I can't afford the nice salons where they actually care about the health of your nails along with the prettiness of them, I had to learn to do them myself for now.  So when I spotted this Brush-On Gel Nail Kit from Broadway Nails at Wal-Mart for only $10, I just had to try it.  I'll tell you now, I was very conflicted about this kit after using it.  Find out why after the jump!

Included in the kit is:

• Brush-On Gel
• Brush-On Activator
• Brush Cleaner
• Natural and French Nail Tips
• Manicure Stick
• Nail File/Buffer

In a nutshell the procedure is as follows:  You prep your natural nails, pick out the correct nail tip size for each finger and glue them on, apply the brush-on gel, apply the brush-on activator on top of the gel, repeat the gel and activator application for a second layer, and, finally, let dry.  

To be honest, it pretty much is that simple.  This is the first huge plus of this kit:  Application with this kit is the definition of the word "cinch".  Let me put it this way, if you've ever applied Glue-On Nails and if you've ever painted your nails before, you can most definitely use this nail kit effectively and easily.  The next huge plus of the kit are the results:

As you can see here, I chose the natural tips since my plans were to paint over them anyway.  You can see the seam where the tip ends and the natural nail begins, but only if you hold them up close.  They looked so nice that I wore them naked like this for a few extra days before painting them.  Also, I had read reviews of this product that claimed that the nails fell off quickly.  This was not the case for me.  I'm still wearing them to this day and not one of them looks or feels like it's about to budge anytime soon.  I've opened soda cans, peeled oranges, and washed my hair with confidence and no damage whatsoever.

Okay, now it's time to talk about the only con this kit has, and it's a big one:  dry time.  There really is no dry time because I'm not sure they ever did truly dry.  The packaging promises the formula will be dry in under 5 minutes.  Five minutes, my you-know-what.  After I completed the directions I sat for TWO HOURS and the suckers were just as sticky as they were when I finished.  Luckily I didn't have anything to do and we had put a movie in, so I didn't mind sitting there.  The true problem was the fact that my nails had become a magnet for every little piece of stray hair/dust/lint around.  I live in a house with 2 long-haired dachshunds - sticky nails for more than 5 minutes just cannot happen.  

After getting completely fed up, I tried spraying it with nail glue dryer....didn't work.  Then I tried spraying it with a gel activator I had from another kit....didn't work.  So I tried spraying it with a nail enamel dryer.....kiiiiiiiinda worked - a little.  It was still sticky as hell, but a little better.  Finally, I painted a coat of Nails, Inc. Kensington Caviar Top Coat, that I reviewed here, and hallelujah, it worked!  Well, worked for the most part.  The gel underneath wasn't truly dry, but the top coat dried enough so that my nails weren't picking up every stray hair and piece of lint in the house.  And I must say that although the formula took so long to dry, it wasn't like wet nail polish where if you touched it or hit it against something it puts marks and/or fingerprints on the nail.  I hit the nails quite a few times but it didn't show any damage, luckily.


So does the dry time make or break this kit for me?  Well, during the time that I was actually waiting for it to dry, I would've definitely said break.  It was such a pain in the ass.  Every time I moved (and sometimes when I was just sitting still) I had to pick a hundred little hairs and lint off my nails.  However, the next day when the fear of the nails not being dry enough had faded away, the results were so beautiful and long-lasting that I think I can get over the dry time.  After all, I did find a way to help the drying along so at least I'll know for next time and maybe it won't be so bad.  


Bottom Line:   Amber LIKES!!! (but reeeeeeally wanted to LOVE)

• Just a tip when using this product:  Try your best to file down where the false nail tip meets your natural nail bed.  The more blended you can get it, the better it will look.  I didn't do this to well on some nails and once I painted over them it became apparent that my nails weren't completely level.  It doesn't look as bad if you don't paint them, however.

So are you DIY kind of person when it comes to your nails or do you love your salon manicures?


UPDATE 12/24/11:
So after I did some research I figured out how to apply these a little better so they dry a bit faster.  According to the instructions, you apply a layer of gel + activator, and then right after that you apply another layer.  The first change I made was letting the nails dry between each layer and that did help.  Secondly, I made sure not to apply too much applicator, as the instructions do not mention what is too much or too little.  These changes did help.  Each layer took about 15-20 minutes to dry, as opposed to never really drying at all after hours and hours.  Still not 5 minutes like the packaging claims, but much better than it was the first time :)  Not sure if it helped, but instead of doing one whole hand at a time like the directions say, I also did one nail at a time as far as applying the applicator right after I applied the gel for each nail.  Hope that helps