For gel nail polish, it's important to use a much thinner layer of base-coat than you would with standard nail polish, so instead of applying the coat to all of my nail, my technician applied it to the tips before spreading it across the whole nail.
Then, we chose a base color. I have short nails, and she noted a darker color combination might make my nails look even shorter, so we picked a lighter base. She applied two layers, putting my hand in a UV LED Nail Lamp box after each coat.
After applying the base color, my nail artist reminded me that nail art color tends to bleed if there is no rough base to hold it in place so she rubbed a sanding file block back and forth across my nails before to prevent her brush strokes from spreading.
