shallac nails

I thought I'd share a non-baby post. Almost 4 weeks ago I paid the $30 to have my nails shallac-ed. I wanted to know what all the fuss was about. For those of you who don't know it's a gel polish that is suppose to stay on for 14 days.
When I go to have a pedi-mani I always ask to get the mani first so my nails have more time to dry. This time I did the same and the woman exclaimed that my nails would be completely dry when I left. I thought "We'll see about that" but agreed to her order: pedi then mani. The process is a base, 2 coats of color, and a top coat. Between each coat you dry your nails under a UV light for about 2.5 minutes. You can only get it for your hands. When I left, I had perfect looking, completely dry nails. That alone was worth the extra money to me. I can't count how many times I've left the salon to nicked my nails in the car while driving away.
The claims about the shellac process are correct. My nails didn't fade or chip, and they didn't break since the polish made them stronger. They were still looking fantastic 3 weeks after having it done. However, my nails had grown, so if you looked close enough you'd see that they needed maintenance. So I finally decided to remove the polish. Sat down during a Lucius's nap and began to rub it off. Yeah, the claims that nail polish remover works, are wrong. It didn't even remove the shine in 2 minutes of rubbing (however, this shows just how durable the polish is). So I did some research on how to remove the polish. Needed real acetone and needed to soak them for 10 minutes, then scrape the polish. So I tried that on one hand, again during a nap. 40 minutes later I'd removed about 90% of it, but hadn't even started the next hand. And I'm still walking around with one hand painted and one bare.

So my verdict: I would totally do it again, but I'd pay to have them remove the polish (no idea how much that might cost).