Hi ladies,

I figured somebody here will be able to help with this.
I had gel (i.e. liquid gel) nails done 3 weeks ago, for the first time in my life. So you see I don't know what I am talking about).
I opted to not have the nail tips glued on but use my own nails instead (which, fortunately, are fairly strong and in a pretty good shape). So my nails were filed really short, then the manicurist put a layer of gel on them, sprayed the white tips on, put another layer of gel on them, etc. The last layer was a clear nail polish.

I was hoping to go back to the salon for "maintenance" today but I realized I wouldn't have the time as I am go the gym shortly for an hour and a half and the salon closes early on Saturdays.
My nails have grown and the nail polish look tired, so my question is:

- can I file my nails into shape (i.e. to shorten them)?
- can I remove the nail polish (I have no acetone polish remover) and apply a new layer of clear nail polish?

If I can do that then I should be good until next Saturday. I don't think I can make it to the salon on weekdays. You are probably at my silly question but I don't want to do anything silly to ruin the nails. All the girls in the salon are Thai or Vietnamese and it looked like only "the boss" could communicate in English but she was not easy to understand so I didn't ask too many questions. They did a very nice job though and I was very pleased.

Thanks in advance.

Eh I'd be afraid I won't cut it well or mess up when I put the nail polish on. I'd make time to go honestly... lol.

This is the biggest reason I didn't keep my gel nails. I couldn't deal with the time it took (not to mention the expense) to keep them up. It basically takes an hour each time and it's not a relaxing hour like one would have with a manicure or pedicure. I still love how they looked and that the french manicure wouldn't come off, but not worth the time. Regarding your question, I wouldn't do it myself....I think the material is very hard and you need special tools to be able to shape it properly, but I've never tried, so I can't say for sure. If you mess it up, you might have to redo the entire thing and that would be a bummer, but I could be wrong!

I agree, I've had them for a long time and when I've tried to do them myself it's always meant a big mess at the salon

Thanks for your replies. I called them and found out they were actually open till 5 pm and not till 2 pm as I originally thought, so I did go there.
I had no idea that having the gel nails refilled basically means having it done all over again. I am pretty sure I will not keep the nails once winter is over (or perhaps even prior to that) as I do a lot of stuff around the house and that doesn't really sync well with long nails. And yes, the "upkeep" takes time and is expensive.
But, just FYI, you can file the nails yourself - there was one nail that wasn't completely to my liking so I had to file it a bit myself yesterday and it went ok.