LED OR UV NAIL LAMP?
People are obsessed with gel nail manicure once they see how awesome gel can be. However, the cost of having a gel manicure every two or three weeks adds up fast, and keeping up with nail appointments is not always the case.
How’s about at home gel manicure? You’re probably thinking, “Oh. I’m not a professional manicurist.” At home gel manicure is more affordable and easier to achieve than you’d ever think. All you will need is Gel Nail Polish (top and base coat) and a UV or LED Nail Lamp. It sounds easy enough, right? Now, you might have another questions about UV or LED nail lamp. Don’t worry! I’ll walk you through it step by step.
Why do You Need a UV or LED Nail Lamp?
You see, a gel nail polish is made to be different from a traditional nail polish. It is designed to never evaporate, hence will not harden simply by air drying. For the polish to completely dry, once applied it has to be cured under UV or LED light.
Differences between a UV Lamp and a LED Lamp
LED Lamp
- Lighter in weight, Compact in Size
- Up to 50,000 hours (bulbs are not replaced)
- More effective at thoroughly curing most clear gels
- Works well with Kiki London Nail Gel
- Cures gels faster than UV lamps
- Currently more expensive than UV lamps
UV Lamp
- Heavier in weight
- About 10,000 hours of functional use (bulbs are replaced every 2 or 4 months depending on amount of use)
- Has difficulties curing some clear gels
- Take longer to cure gels. (Usually double the time)
- Cheaper than LED lamps
These UV or LED lamps used to be really expensive and bulky, but there are a ton of quality nail lamp options available in a huge range of prices now. They can range from £24.99 which can be equal to the price of a single manicure , or up to £100. Just by doing a simple calculation, you will see that purchasing a nail lamp totally makes sense.
Nail Salon, Nail Artist or even home user, we highly recommend using LED Nail Lamps rather than UV Lamps because of the below main factors:
1) LED Nail Lamps last over 50,000hrs in comparison to life time of a UV Lamp at only 10,000hrs.
2) Price of the LED Nail Lamps in 2018 in comparison to 2017.
3) Ability to cure multiple gel polishes at different heat levels provides huge benefit of LED Nail Lamps
4) Smart - High Technology which provides no dead zones within the drying space means that your nails are equally cured/dried at the same time.
5) Now Available - as 2 in 1 LED PRO+ Lamp which has been engineered for a Manicure and Pedicure. New in trend - more information for this is below.
It can get quite overwhelmed when you’re trying to compare nail lamps. We will going to break it all down, so you can decide which one is a perfect fit for your need. Here is my guide to the latest LED nail lamps on the market right now!