How to Apply Gel Polish over Dip Powder Nails

How do you apply gel polish over dip powder nails?

Sometimes, you may want to cover a mistake or paint over your dip nails with gel polish or nail polish. You may choose to do this because acrylic powder lasts a lot longer than gel, and you want your color to last longer. Maybe you’re just wanting to apply nail art. Or maybe you just want to change your nail color. Whatever the reason, we’re here to tell you that you can, in fact, apply gel polish over dip powder nails!

Is it easy to paint over dip nails? How do you do it?

It’s actually quite easy to apply any color over your dip powder color, but there’s a few things you can do to make the process go a lot smoother. We’re going to cover those.

Tips for applying gel polish over dip nails.

• Apply a thin acrylic/dip nail coat.
• If you don’t want your nails looking atrociously large and thick, you’ll want to try applying a single, even coat of dip powder over your nail. That way, when you paint your nail polish over your dipped nails, it won’t add too much height. Usually one dip coat is enough, just make sure it’s even coverage.
• Use a light-colored dip nail color, like white.
• If you’re just wanting to paint over your dip powder because it lasts a long time, then choose a light-colored coat. This will help your gel polish stand out more against the dip powder and the color won’t get muddled.
• When you dip your nails, leave space between the cuticles.
• You need to make sure you leave enough spacing between your cuticles so you can properly paint all the curves of your nail powder. If you don’t do this step, you won’t be able to cleanly reach the bottoms of your nail color and you’ll end up with multicolored nails!
• Use a thin layer of clear top coat before applying your nail polish color.
• Use any clear top coat, like our no-wipe gel top coat, over the dip powder before applying your gel polish color. Dip powder is very rough and textured so you want to add that smooth finish before you apply polish over it. If you miss this step, you’re color will look blotchy and bumpy!
• Pick a highly pigmented nail polish color.
• There’s a big difference between a watery polish and a thick polish. Some gel polishes can have a “clear” sheen to them. You want to pick a polish that’s thick and highly pigmented to go over your dip powder, otherwise you’ll be able to see the base dip color underneath.

And that’s how you apply any polish over dip powder!

I hope this helped you decide if you want to try this method of combining dip powder and gel polish. It can be really fun to combine the different types of nail polish methods and you can really come up with some crazy ideas. Have you tried gel polish over dip powder before? How did it go? Let us know in the comments!