Ultimate Guide to Dip Powder Nails: Application, Tips and Tricks

Ultimate Guide to Dip Powder Nails: Application, Tips and Tricks

Who are we and why should you listen to us talk about Dip Powder?

Are Revel Nail we are the only brand that makes its Dip Powder in-house, in our warehouse in Blackwood, NJ. We buy the components we need and make it ourselves. The rest of the brands you see online are buying from one of the big manufacturers and reselling – or possibly buying from us! We make and package powder for several major national brands, as well as for ourselves. We were the FIRST brand to sell Dip Powder online- and we can prove it! Here is our website from the Internet Archive from April 2015 selling Dip Powder! https://web.archive.org/web/20150423113807/http://www.revelnail.com/ So we are the Dip Powder experts – we’ve been doing this a lot longer than anyone else, and we are the actual source of powder for a lot of the brands you’ve heard of.

Why Does Dip Powder Work?

Dip Powder offers very strong, durable manicures that don’t damage your nails, doesn’t need a UV light like Gel Polish does, and will soak off in Acetone, unlike Acrylic manicures. There are 3 liquids + a powder required to do a Dip Powder Manicure. The first liquid is the Probase/Step 1 (sometimes called Base, Base Coat, etc). This is an adhesive that was originally developed for medical purposes – things like knee and hip replacements. It’s a strong adhesive that is safe for permanent usage on the human body.

Pro tip: Step 1 is a very strong adhesive – please be careful not to get any on the rim of the bottle, it can cause the lid to be glued shut. If you get any activator or powder into the bottle, or don’t seal the lid well and let air get in, it will cause the liquid to begin to harden inside the bottle. Take care of your liquids!

After you apply the base coat to the nail (Pro Tip: Avoid the cuticles on the first coat!) it’s time to dip your nail in the Dip Powder. The powder is a Polymer based powder that is safe to use on humans. It is mixed with pigments to make it colored, and those pigments are safe for cosmetic use. Brands like Revel Nail that are registered to sell in the EU have gone through extensive testing of our powders and pigments to make sure they are all safe. Low cost brands that sell on Amazon are using ingredients that will not pass EU testing and may be unsafe – that’s how they get their prices so low. Be careful where you buy your cosmetics from! If you are putting something on your body for an extended period of time you want to make sure it doesn’t have chemicals you don’t want being absorbed by your body.

Once you have dipped your nail in the powder, you use the Step 2 Activator on your nail to harden the powder. This is what you use instead of a light, like you would for Gel Polish. The activator causes the powder to cure into a solid, just like the light causes the liquid to cure into a solid on Gel Polish, but without needing the UV light. Activator’s job is to cause Step 1 and Step 3 to harden into a sold, so be very careful with is. Make sure that your Activator is dry before applying the second coat of Step 1 or before moving on to applying the Finish Gel.

Pro Tip: Use a lint free wipe after you have let the Activator cure to ensure that it is dry before moving on to the next step.

Once you have used your Activator to harden the Dip Powder, the last step is to apply a coat of Finish Gel that will seal in the manicure and give it a long-lasting shine. The Finish Gel is applied on top of the activated Dip Powder from Step 2, and it makes the manicure shiny.

Pro Tip: Finish Gel and Probase have the same ingredients, usually Probase is a thicker consistency than Probase, but in a pinch you can substitute them for each other if you are out of one or the other.

There are a lot of great videos and resource on how to Apply Dip Powder – here is a step-by-step instruction guide: https://www.revelnail.com/pages/instructions

And here is a YouTube video if you prefer videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drGr4-31kRo

There are quite a few tutorials on the Revel Nail YouTube Channel that you can look at here: https://www.youtube.com/@RevelNail

If you are interested in doing a Dip Powder Manicure at home, you can get a kit with everything you need here: https://www.revelnail.com/products/build-your-own-dip-powder-starter-kit?variant=42784520405190

Beginners Guide to Dip Powder Manicure Nails

If you are familiar with Gel Polish and Nail Polish then you may have heard about Dip Powder, but you may have some questions, so we’ll try to answer any questions you have here

How is it different from Gel Polish?

Like Gel Polish it gives you a great manicure, but it has some differences. The main difference is instead ofusing a colored Gel Polish to provide the manicure, it’s a powder. And because of that, it doesn’t use a UV light to cure, it uses a liquid to cure the powder into a solid. Dip Powder is even more durable than Gel Polish and should be more chip and lift resistant than a Gel Polish manicure.

What do you need to do a Dip Powder Manicure?

You need 3 liquids – Probase, Activator, and Finish Gel, plus a powder to do a Dip Powder Manicure.

Do I need a UV light to do a Dip Powder manicure?

No, you don’t need a light to do a Dip Powder manicure, that is one of the big benefits of Dip Powder.

Can I do nail art with Dip Powder?

Yes, you can do everything from French Manicures to highly intricate designs with Dip Powder – the only limit is your imagination!

Is Dip Powder safe to use on my nails?

Yes, Dip Powder from reputable brands like Revel Nail passes strict EU testing and is safe to use. Be careful with extremely low-cost brands on places like Amazon, they might be using lower quality ingredients and be less safe to use.