Nail-aid Remover Gel: Does this thing really work?!

When I found this new remover gel by nail-aid at Walmart, I immediately had the idea to do a blog entry inspired by Bunny from Youtube (grav3yardgirl). She's awesome and I love watching her videos!
This is, for the most part, a pictorial review - if you have any questions feel free to ask in comments and I will edit in the details!

The pink jar and yellow jar have the exact same ingredient list other than red colorant in the pink jar, so I only bought the yellow jar. I then submitted a contact form on the nail-aid brand website a week ago to ask if there were different percentages of each ingredient and have not yet heard back from them. As far as the ingredient list on the jars, these look like the same formula packaged two different ways - one pink and one yellow. The instructions on the jar are also the same except for step 2, which is a difference in the length of time to let the gel sit on the nail (45 seconds vs. 4 minutes).





Let's try a much more dense glitter shall we? This is two coats for full coverage, it's glitter packed!



You can read more and see product photos at http://www.norubgel.com/, unfortunately, they do not list the ingredients on the webpage. So here they are for the yellow jar:
Acetone, Water, Carbomer, PEG-15 Cocamine, Linoleic Acid, Dimethicone

The pink jar is the same exact list, except for a red colorant which is at the end of the ingredients list.

I emailed the address on their no-rub webpage since I had not gotten a reply from the brand website, and within a few hours I had a response from Jeff about the ingredients and formulation:

"YES. The ingredients are almost the same as you note, but the proprietary formulation differs. "

He didn't say how the formulation differed or offer any other details, but there you have it.

I found the formula to be super sticky, so you'll definitely want to use a paper towel to wipe and immediately wash your hands with warm soapy water. I found that I really needed to scrub and washed my hands twice, once with a foaming sugar scrub.

I would not recommend this product for a few reasons: It's not effective for heavy glitter polish. I had to wash my hands aggressively to get the sticky film off. And that made the whole removal process take longer than using a peel off base coat, a scrubby tub (better known as the A.V.) or the foil method.

Thanks for stopping by!

Questions I've received!
Q: which one did you try or did you try both??
A: I only tried the yellow jar since the ingredient list was the same with exception of the colorant. I did not feel the need to have them both.

Q: What does it smell like?
A: chemically and sharp - similar to other acetone removers.

Q: What does it feel like?
A: The gel is a lot like an aloe gel in texture. When worn it felt really cold on my nail and after wiping it off, it had a sticky feel. You'll definitely want to wash your hands after use.

Q: So....do you like it better than just regular remover? It seems like it takes just as long.
A: I kind of have mixed feelings about it! I think I may prefer it over the foil method since the gel doesn't need foil to work - so that's less trash/mess to deal with. That is really the only advantage I can quickly think of.
I often use a peel off base coat, so I don't use the foil method very often, but for my non-swatching hand where I use regular base coat, I've avoided glitters - I may start wearing them again since discovering this though! I think I want to experiment with leaving it on longer, and see if it works better than my above experiment for the high density type glitter polishes.

Q: Do the different yellow and pink jars get the same result?
A: I didn't purchase the pink jar to try, but I have seen a review of it and based on that blogger's photos, it looks to me like the results are similar.

Q: Does the remover gel also remove gel polishes?
A: A dear reader, Libby, wrote in to answer this question for us, as I don't have experience with gel polishes.
She says, "I had great results and would do it again."
Libby sent a breakdown and photos to me to illustrate each step and I have to agree, it worked really well for gel polish removal! Thank you Libby!