Wow, @copa! There is a difference, but it’s subtle. Also FWIW I wouldn’t notice baggy eyes in your before picture until you mentioned it.

My lashes are growing out pretty normally. If anything I miss the minimal smudging from mascara! Even with waterproof mascara I never found one that gave volume and didn’t smudge.

A recent study came out about gel manicures that the UV light changes DNA and causes cancer. I think you’re only curing your nails for maybe 10 min total but it doesn’t hurt to apply sunscreen on your hands and maybe wear UV screening tipless gloves

I don’t do gel anymore, I use to do gel or shellac? while I was young and flush with cash about ten years ago. The DVN polish is ten free vegan polish but also cool/nerdy depending on your perspective. The color changing…capabilities, maybe it’s my inner 90s teen but I was sold before I even saw it.

I only do gel if I’m going on vacation because the removal process bugs me. I did dip once, they literally dip your nail in colored powder and paint clear layers over it. It’s kind of cool but not my thing. It makes your nails look thick, and it’s soooo hard, the removal was crazy. Also I don’t need my polish to stay intact for 3 weeks, because my cuticles start looking bad well before that and I just want a fresh manicure.

I can paint my own nails decently well, and I really like Olive & June products for that, but I just would rather have a professional give me a regular nice mani once a week and deal with my cuticles.

I always take my gel polish off at home, usually the “wrong” way. If dip manicure requires going back in to remove it, it’d not be for me. It also seems quite pricey to me, at least from the numbers I’ve heard friends throw out. I usually get a solid two to three weeks out of my gel manis in any case. I’m sure the UV light isn’t great, but I do it sparingly and also feel sure I more regularly expose myself to other things that can’t be great for me.

As a side note, we just spent a week in Mexico. I didn’t burn and I am so pleased with that. I’m generous with sunscreen and am a floppy sun hat wear-er, but find I often burn a little notwithstanding if it’s the first sun exposure in awhile.

Ah, one day when I am an empty-nester and the kids’ college is paid for, I will join in on these convos about weekly manicures and beach vacations (we spent a small fortune on our beach vacation to grand cayman last February and justified it bc of all the $$ we saved not leaving our house for the first year of the pandemic, but when your availability to travel is limited to NYC public school breaks and the airlines triple flight costs to any island during that week, its just not in the cards for most of us). And I’ve had probably five professional manicures in the past ten years, none of which has been anything other than just a normal manicure (no gel or anything like that). Sometimes I feel like I’m reading about life on another planet (but it’s interesting and gives me something to look forward to one day!).

I do sweat a bit, but definitely the bigger symptom is feeling like my body is a furnace and overheating on the inside. I have friends a few years older who sweat so much at night that they soak their sheets. That’s not happening to me (yet). But, man, last week was the worst I ever had it: seven nights in a row feeling like I was going to just explode I felt so hot. Then I finally opened a damn window and the relief was immediate. Started my period the next day too (five days late and after almost a week of spotting; I was crossing my fingers I might have my first month of a skipped period but nah. That’s still the one big peri symptom I’m waiting on. I’ve had two periods in one month several times and 10-day long periods followed by 2-day periods the next month but still no skipped month).

I’ve been sleeping with a window open every night since I made the amazing discovery that I could do that, and have not been hot at all and have been sleeping well.