My First Shellac Manicure!!!

I'm sorry my blogs have been incredibly sparse lately.  Graduate school is catching up to me and I have been so busy between doing stuff for school, applying for jobs and maintaining my social life that unfortunately blogging has been put on the back burner.  Plus, I'm trying to not spend as much money so that means I have less products to talk about!
How many of you ladies use these social "couponing" sites as a way to try new and different things in your area?  Have you ever heard of Groupon or LivingSocial?  Well recently I subscribed to another one (like I really needed to) called HalfOffDepot.  During my first week of being a subscriber a local Salon was offering a Spa Pedicure and a Shellac Manicure for only 20 dollars for both! If you have ever looked around you will know that usually the cheapest rate for a Shellac Manicure alone is around $25 so this was a hell of a deal.  I of course had to snatch it up.  I had to see if this was really a 2-3 week manicure or not! Plus, who doesn't need a good pedicure once in awhile!
So, a little insight in to what a Shellac Manicure is.  The line of products that the manicurist at this Salon used was Gelish.  According to Gelish:
"This system uses only a pH balancing agent to stabilize the moisture level of the nail. Then the Mini Gelish Foundation Gel has adhesive properties that attract to the keratin in the natural nail, not causing any depletion, only acting as a 2 sided tape to adhere the Mini Gelish Gel Polish to the nail itself. "
The process for using these polishes is the same as that of a regular manicure with two exceptions the formulation of all the products are different than that of regular polish and you use LED and UV light to set the formula.  The manicure starts with of course cleaning the nails, trimming the cuticles, buffing etc.  A base coat is applied and your nails are then place under a UV or LED light for around 1 minute.  After the actual polish of your choosing is applied you then place your nails under the light again for approximately 2 minutes.  This allows the polish to set as described above.  After this is finished a top coat is applied, some more light time and BAM the nails are dry! There is no sitting around for hours waiting on your nails to dry! How awesome right?
I went with my friend Blake last night to use our halfoffdepot deal.  Let's see the results...

I let the manicurist pick what color was going on my nails since I really had no preference.  She chose a deep purple.  I really love the color.  The only part that stinks is that my nails were short when I went in.  Today is day 1 with the new manicure.  So we shall see how this goes.  I will keep you all updated!!!!

Have you ladies ever had a Shellac manicure?  what did you think?