There’s nothing worse than ruining your freshly painted nails, especially when you find out the hard way that they didn’t dry as fast as you thought they did.
Naturally, you will want to make sure you treat those nails right. Don’t think you can get away with just using the right polish for your nails (although this is super important). You also have to think about drying them properly.
When it comes to gel polish, the best way to do that is with a lamp. But what about normal nail polish?
Can normal nail polish dry under LED light? Unfortunately, neither an LED nor UV lamp will help normal nail polish dry faster. LED and UV lamps are for drying gel polish. Normal nail polish dries due by evaporation.
Standard nail polish just dries the old-fashioned way – by evaporating.
Consider this your guide to all your basic nail polish drying questions. We’ll discuss why LED and UV lamps are not helpful for drying normal nail polish, why it’s not a great idea to try to use them for normal polish anyway, and much more in this article. Read on to become the nail polish guru you were meant to be.
How Do You Dry Nail Polish?
As we said standard nail polish pretty much dries by evaporation, which means a lot of waiting.
Standard nail polish takes 1-2 hours before it’s fully dry, especially if you’ve utilized base and topcoat on your hails.
Nail polish is comprised partly of compounds which tend to evaporate quickly, such as ethyl acetate. So in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t take that long to dry. When you compare nail polish to, say, house paint, you will see that drying in 1-2 hours is relatively quite fast for something which is basically paint for your nails.
Gel nail polish, on the other hand, dries under UV or LED lamps. The foundation coat usually takes 10 seconds depending on the UV lamp brand and model. Then, the gel polish and top coat will take a few minutes extra. Under an LED lamp it dries faster.
LED and UV lamps, however, do not help regular nail polish dry significantly faster. They are not worth investing in for your standard nail polish, even if they might speed up drying just a little, either.
LED lamps still emit UV radiation, just like UV lamps, which can be dangerous for your skin health and raise your risk of skin cancer with prolonged use and exposure.
Although a few minutes of nail-drying is unlikely to cause a problem, even for regular salon goers, there is just no good reason to add to the amount of UV radiation exposure you are already getting, especially since these lamps won’t make a noticeable difference in your nail polish drying time.
It’s much safer to just let your nails dry the old fashioned way.
How to Dry Normal Nail Polish Faster
While you shouldn’t bother trying an LED or UV lamp to speed up the drying time of your normal nail polish, there are some things you can try to move the process along.
You can purchase professional nail drying sprays to help standard nail polishes to dry faster. However, if you want to save your money, try the following cheaper alternatives:
1. Use Hairspray
Drying nails faster with hairspray is shockingly simple, and you probably already have some at home anyway.
Here’s how to do it:
- First, paint your nails and give them a minute to dry.
- Then, get hairspray and hold it around eight inches away. Spray your nails and leave for 1 minute.
- Then, wash your hands with cold water.
2. Use Ice Water
You can also skip the hairspray altogether and just use ice water instead, except you will do this ahead of time – before you apply any polish.
Just follow these steps:
- Dip your unpainted nails into a cup filled with cold water. Make sure you put a couple of ice cubes in the water.
- Keep your nails in the water for a couple of minutes.
- Then, paint your nails with your favorite nail polish.
Believe it or not, this actually will speed up your drying time.
3. Use a Hairdryer
This is an old trick, and you’ve probably heard of it before, if you haven’t already tried it yourself.
Here’s how to dry your nail polish a little faster with a hairdryer:
- After applying your regular nail polish, set your hairdryer on the slowest, coolest setting.
- Position your nails around six inches away from the hairdryer.
- Blow-dry your nails for a couple of minutes.
This may not dry your nails completely, but it will greatly speed up the process. It will certainly do more than an LED lamp will, anyway, and you won’t have to invest in more equipment than you probably already have.
4. Apply Thinner Coats
This one is probably obvious to you already.
Less paint dries faster, so applying your paint in thinner coats will make sure each coat dries faster. You should also wait for each coat to dry a little between coats; otherwise you’re just waiting for what is effectively one mega coat to dry.
What to Buy Instead of an LED Lamp For Normal Nail Polish
If you are willing and able to purchase tools to speed up the process, however, here’s what you can get instead of an LED lamp for your normal nail polish.
1. Nail Fan
Investing in a nail fan has many benefits. A nail fan works basically like a hairdryer, only it’s a tool specially made for drying regular nail polish. It blows warm air over your nails which speeds up the evaporation of all of those solvents in the nail polish.
When shopping for a good nail fan, consider Makartt Air Nail Dryer. It’s salon-quality and can sense when your nails aren’t underneath the sensor, so you can’t accidentally leave it running.
2. Nail Polish Drying Spray
It may sound odd to spray your nails with a liquid in order to make your polish…less liquid, but drying sprays are a surprisingly effective tool that makes your nail polish dry within minutes. The best part? Nail polish sprays aren’t costly.
Nail polish drying sprays use certain chemicals that when applied onto your regular nail polish, will speed up the pace of evaporation of the solvents in your nail polish.
If you’re looking for a good nail polish drying spray, we recommend this quick-drying spray, which seems to be beloved by many professionals and amateurs alike.
Can You Use Regular Nail Polish With a Gel Top Coat?
Yes and no! You can place a gel top layer over regular polish to make it last longer. However, make sure your nail polish has dried fully before putting the gel top layer.
In this case, you will need an LED or UV drying lamp to cure the top layer. If you want to use regular and gel nail polish together, we recommend looking for tutorials to be sure you get it right the first time.
Why Does UV Light Cure Gel Polish?
Gel polish doesn’t dry like regular nail polish. This type of polish dries via a chemical reaction induced by the UV light from either an LED or UV lamp.
Gel polishes have photoinitiators that react with this type of light to get a polymerization reaction which causes the gel polishes to harden and cure.
Can Gel Nail Polish Dry Without an LED Light?
Unfortunately, gel nail polish can’t dry properly without LED or UV light because the chemical formula of this type of nail polish is different from regular nail polish.
Gel polish that doesn’t need an LED or UV light to cure isn’t real gel polish. It’s a standard nail polish, and may be deceptively advertised. Stay alert and shop wisely
How Long Does it Take to Cure Gel Nails With LED Light?
Just to be clear, you’re going to need an actual LED lamp to cure gel nails. This process usually takes 30 seconds. However, some brands and products may require a bit longer. It mostly depends on the gel that you choose.
Can I Use an LED Flashlight to Cure Gel Nails?
Unfortunately, you can’t use an LED flashlight to cure gel nails.
There’s not a significant UV output from a LED flashlight. The gel polish resin requires real UV light with a wavelength shorter than 400 nm; you can get this from UV lights and LED nail lamps, or blacklight fluorescent tubes.
However, they have to be made to emit UV specifically. A UV or LED nail lamp emits UV wavelengths. LED lamps last longer than UV lamps. Additionally, they need a bulb replacement more often.
What Makes LED and UV Nail Drying Lamps Different?
The main difference between LED and UV nail drying lamps isn’t the price although LED nail drying lamps typically cost more than UV. It’s the length of drying time.
For instance, an LED lamp dries faster than a UV lamp. Also, UV lamps need bulb replacement more often. Additionally, an LED lamp will last a lot longer than UV lamps.
Most brands sell lamps that perform perfectly with their other products. Thus, you will probably get the best results when utilizing products from the same company.
Pay attention to the gel polish you buy. Make sure it will cure in your UV or LED lamp. Some will cure in both UV and LED lamps while others require UV only.
Recommended: Sensationail Gel Polish Starter Kit
If you want to get a salon-fresh manicure in the comfort of your home, you will need a high-quality lamp and other basic products like base and top coat, cleanser, and primer.
The sensational gel polish starter kit delivers all the basic tools you need to get your nails done at home. It will provide a fresh coat of damage-resistant color that can last for weeks.
The process takes 3 simple steps. There’s no dry time and you will end up with a super-gloss shine. It’s a beginner-friendly set and works quickly. The best part? It’s also travel-friendly.
The lamp comes with 2 settings programmed for 30 and 60 seconds. Therefore, if you’re looking for a kit with a 7-Watt LED lamp and other basic tools, look no further than this one.
Does Gel Polish Ruin Your Nails?
Luckily, gel polish doesn’t ruin your nails.
However, removing them the wrong way can cause damage. Therefore, it’s smart to follow a guide on how to remove gel polish without ruining your nails.
If you remove gel polish right, it should keep your nails fresh. The acetone used for removal does dry out your nails. This can make your nails weak but you can prevent this with home remedies such as proper hydration and moisturizing.
Here’s a great tutorial from POPSUGAR Beauty to make sure you remove your gels safely without damaging your nails:
Wrap Up
Regular nail polish is solvent-based and dries by evaporating. The solvents evaporate and nail polish stays on for a few days or weeks, depending on the quality of the nail polish.
Can normal nail polish dry under LED light? The short answer would be ‘no’. If you want to speed up the drying process of standard nail polish, you can utilize a nail fan or nail polish drying spray.
You can’t use LED or UV nail lamps to dry regular nail polish because they only work on gel products. Gel nail polishes need LED or UV nail lamps to dry properly.
Gel polishes have photoinitiators which are activated by UV lights and provide a chemical reaction that enables the gel to cure. This is also why you shouldn’t keep gel nail polish in direct sunlight. Otherwise, it can thicken and cure if there’s a small clear spot on the bottle to expose the color. Store your gel products in a dark place.
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