An Open Letter to the Gel Manufacturers

I really want more gels to come in squeezy tubes.  A million years ago, when I invested in my first gel line, the one I picked came in little applicator bottles so you squeezed the gel directly onto the nail. Of course, then you had to take a brush and smooth it out, but it was so much easier than the gels that came in little pots.

Now it's virtually impossible to find a gel product that comes in a tube. They all come in little pots. And there aren't many gel products that allow you to buy product in bulk either.

No wonder the stuff is so expensive.

And these little pots! They just don't make sense to me. It seems so obvious that they aren't the best way to store gel. For one thing, all that open surface area allows dust, hair, and glitter — let's not forget glitter — that's floating around to land in the gel. Maybe I'm doing it wrong, but no matter how clean I keep my station, it's never dust- (or glitter-) free. Especially with the ceiling fan on.

Little pots also allow more UV rays to reach my gel while it's in use. I work in front of a window in addition to the desk lamp, overhead lights, and two gel lamps on my desk. I'm not having problems with my gels curing in the jar, but a squeezy bottle would still get less light.

And mostly, what is up with the packaging for these gel products in these little pots? Don't you know you are selling these products to nail techs? Many of whom actually wear nails? I understand why you have to seal the jars with some sort of airtight safety seal — to ensure that the gel doesn't leak at any point before it reaches it's final destination. But why are those seals so crazy hard to remove? For several of the products I've used, I've had to cut through the seal with a razor blade and then wrestle the seal off of the jar with pliers.

You know, with a squeezy tube all I have to do is clip the tip off the tube and put that little cap on. No mess, totally nail friendly.

Also, maybe you could also sell larger sizes of gel? Like for refills. You know, the way we have the option to buy our acrylic products in larger sizes? Cuz it gets cheaper if we buy more? It'd be so easy to refill our little pots — or smaller squeezy tubes — if we could buy gel maybe by the pint. Or in larger squeezy tubes.

I'm tellin’ ya, squeezy tubes are just so much better, I really don't understand why they aren't more popular.