A modern acrylic alternative.
We stopped offering traditional acrylic and replaced it with lamp-cured polygel and acrygel on upper forms. Comparable strength, no monomer odour, minimal cure heat, and a thinner finish you can control nail by nail. Three to four weeks of wear.
We do not work with traditional acrylic. If you are looking for acrylic nails in Calgary, what we offer instead is acrygel or polygel on upper forms, or hard gel where you want to try a lighter gel material. They build the same kind of strength and length without the sharp monomer odour, without the heavy thickness, and without the excess bulk that a typical acrylic set carries.
What a full set includes:
110–120 min, as a Full Set, priced in the booking system. Three to four weeks of wear, with a refill within 28, 21 or 17 days depending on length.
The three are not tiers of quality; they are different answers to how much load the nail has to carry. Hard gel is the lighter gel option for firmer reinforcement and rebuilding architecture. Polygel is the strongest, for high load or complex shape correction. Acrygel sits alongside polygel as the closest thing to acrylic's feel without its odour. The technician chooses at the table, after looking at the plate and hearing what you do with your hands.
Sitting through a cure on a sensitive plate is the thing clients ask about most here. These materials warm slightly under the lamp — minimal heat rather than none — and our no-pain policy applies exactly as it does everywhere else in the studio: light touch, short contact, and we stop when you tell us to. Tools are washed, ultrasound-cleaned, disinfected and steam-sterilized, then sealed until the pouch is opened at your table.
Acrylic earned its place. It is fast, it is strong, it has been proven in high-volume salons for decades, and it does not need a lamp to harden. None of that is in dispute, and none of it is why we stopped.
We stopped because acrygel, polygel and hard gel reach comparable strength while giving us three things acrylic does not. There is no sharp odour, which matters in a small room with one client in it. The material cures with minimal heat, so it is more comfortable on a very sensitive nail plate. And thickness and architecture are controlled precisely as the material is placed, which is how a set ends up thin and still strong instead of bulky and strong. Traditional acrylic systems can also require more aggressive preparation of the plate and an acid primer for adhesion; applied incorrectly or excessively, that raises the risk of irritation and damage, and we would rather work with systems that let us prepare the natural nail more gently.
This is a settled decision, not a stock gap, and we are not planning to bring acrylic back. It is also not a claim that acrylic is bad — it is a claim that for the work we do, on the nails we see, the gel systems give a better result. Where acrylic genuinely wins, we say so on this page rather than pretending it does not.
Wear is three to four weeks, with a refill within 28 days for short or medium nails, 21 for long and 17 for extra-long. Past that window a set books as a New Full Set rather than a refill. Long nails often need an earlier return, usually within two and a half to three weeks. Nails stay healthy underneath because of technique rather than material: minimal filing, sharp regularly-replaced bits, no pressure or overheating, correct architecture, and removal by material rather than by tearing, with a safe thin layer left rather than filing to the natural nail.
A Full Set takes 110–120 min. Extra length is charged by length category and XL books normally at listed prices; beyond XL, custom or extreme lengths are discussed first and priced individually on shape, architecture, materials and time. The technician may shorten a length or decline it if the natural nail cannot safely carry it.
If you are arriving in acrylic from somewhere else, the path is removal and a new set — we do not refill work we did not do, because we cannot know the material, how it was bonded, or what the plate underneath looks like. Removal is booked as Complex Removal, twenty to forty minutes, paid in full, new clients included. Material we applied ourselves comes off free when you book a new service with us.
In eight years of practice our technician has repeatedly seen clients arrive with thinning and ridged plates after aggressively prepared acrylic. Not every client, and not an inevitable outcome — but it is the reason the preparation stage here is deliberately conservative, and why a safe thin layer is left at removal rather than filing down to the natural nail.
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Choose Gel Overlay when you want your own nails reinforced: the technician chooses the material after assessing the nail, and the overlay can build some length, normally short through long. Book a Flawless Gel Nail Extensions — Full Set for length beyond long, or to rebuild a missing part of a nail on an upper form.
Book a Gel Refill while your Gel Overlay or extension set is within its refill window: up to 28 days for short or medium nails, 21 days for long and 17 days for extra-long, counted from your last refill or new set to your appointment date. Regular refills keep the set in shape, and a refill costs less than a new full set. After the window, a Gel Overlay restarts as a new Gel Overlay and extensions as a New Full Set. If we can’t confirm your last visit or nail length, the studio checks before confirming. We refill only work we built: another salon’s extensions, Gel-X or acrylic are removed as a paid Complex Removal first.
It starts with an assessment of your nails’ thickness, flexibility and any damage. The builder gel is then chosen for your length and nail condition: we use builder gels from DARK, DNKa’ and LUNAmoon rather than the original BIAB™. The work itself is gentle on the plate: minimal filing, no pressure or overheating, and removal by material, never by tearing, leaving a safe thin layer rather than filing down to the natural nail. The honest limit: it is a coating that needs upkeep, and it does not heal or treat a nail.
Three to four weeks of wear. To keep it in shape, book your refill within 28 days for short or medium nails, 21 for long and 17 for extra-long (Gel Overlay goes up to long). If a nail chips or lifts within five days of your appointment, we fix it free, up to three nails; the exclusions are in our policies.
Every service is priced with its time on our prices page and in online booking. Standard extra length, including extra-long, books at those prices; custom lengths beyond extra-long are assessed and priced at the appointment. Removing another salon’s work is a separate paid Complex Removal. Before any work starts, your estimated total and time are confirmed with you.
