Perhaps it’s got something to do with biting my nails for decades in the forlorn hope that they would be beautifully-shaped and gorgeously polish-ready like those women I saw on the television and around me, but I have fairly weak nails. They seem in good condition most of the time but in their natural state they break and chip really easily and I can never get them all to a reasonable length before they start splitting and breaking one by one until I am left with a malsoigné mess.

Nor have I ever been good at manicuring. I can do the moisturising, cuticle removal and shaping (more or less) ok, but when it comes to polish I’m not great at applying it or sitting there for what seems like hours while it touch-dries. And then, just as you think it’s dry, a cheerfully affectionate dog comes along and forces you to snuggle, or you have to reach into your handbag for cash or, worse, keys and then withdraw a smudged and messy hand. It takes around 24 hours for conventional nail polish to dry properly and even then it lasts me only a day or two before it starts to chip and flake and look grim. Not worth the effort, really.

Except that polished nails make one looked groomed and composed and in control. And they’re so pretty. No wonder, then, that so many have started gravitating towards having their hands professionally manicured using gel polish. Yes, it’s a bit of a faff to make the appointments but, cured by light, it dries and hardens instantly and can last for up to two or three weeks. Or it might start peeling and chipping after a few hours, depending, I think, on the skill of the manicurist. To be fair, many salons will replace a nail that has come adrift prematurely free of charge, but who has time to make the appointment and it might be difficult to find a free slot. In which case £40 – what it costs me for a manicure – will have gone down the drain.

The other major disadvantage of gel manicures is that they have to be removed professionally with a soak-off, not another Zoolander sequel – that takes another 20 minutes and can cost £20 if you’re not having your nails re-gelled. It is this gel removal process that seems to be the source of the infamous nail damage. The gels can only be removed by soaking them in acetone and scraping. If this isn’t done within the space of a normal removal/re-application appointment, there’s more scraping than soaking and this can damage your nails making them split and crack and break for months afterwards.

Nonetheless, my natural nails do this anyway, so I have reconciled myself to gel manicures. They look so glossy and and professional while they last that the effect is probably addictive. Sometimes, however, when they start to peel, it can be difficult to fit in an appointment and the temptation is to pick and peel them off oneself without acetone, thereby ruining the nails for months to come.

Now, a couple of weeks ago, I was at an in-between manicure stage, waiting for my chipped and breaking fingernails to grow sufficiently to justify an appointment. Any new nail finish would be paying for a temporarily glossy look because my nails were so short that they would soon push their way out of any new manicure. And yet, I needed gel polish to stop them chipping and flaking. I was in a quandary until, walking through Boots, I chanced upon Sensationail’s polish-to-gel kit, which transforms your favourite nail polish into a high gloss gel finish with the use of a gel top coat. The kit included an LED curing lightbox and seemed to be a reasonable price so I investigated the counter, bought the kit and also bought some Sensationail Gel Polish manicures.

The first shade I tried was called, deceptively, Macchiato, which turned out to be a pale pinky colour rather than a nude beige. I got the kit home and tried it out on my very short, damaged nails:

It was really easy to apply and, while there are lots of steps and solutions (file; cleansing solution; primer; base coat; 2 x gel coats; top coat and finally another wipe with the cleansing solution) interspersed with 15 or 30 second curing under the LED lamp, it’s something that can be done very quickly and easily. I’d recommend taking more time and care to remove cuticles and shape and buff your nails here as the polish can pool at the cuticle and look unsightly as it grows out. It also makes it more susceptible to premature flaking. As I say, mine were short and damaged in the photo and I was experimenting gingerly.

The one thing that really surprised me was how, after all these stages, the nails were still wet and tacky until I wiped them over with the so-called Cleansing lotion on a lint-free wipe. The instructions inform us that this moisture is merely water that has come to the surface during the curing process but I’m a little wary of this wonder-solution that is indispensable to the nails setting. After that one wipe, they are completely, hard, dry and glossy. I don’t know what’s in this particular solution but I’d like to find out, especially since it’s a step that cannot be skipped.

Fast forward to 9 days later, and here are my nails:

Yes, there are a couple of chips here and there, but I ascribe those mainly to my clumsiness and the fact that I hadn’t sorted out my cuticles and that the gel was applied on nails in a fairly poor state. Don’t forget, I’ve saved the £40 for a professional manicure, even though I have forked out a similar amount for the kit. I have been more than satisfied by the Sensationail system.

There remained the question of removal, always a traumatic business for nails. I had bought some Sensationail Acetone Gel Polish Remover and some soaking foils. These come in packs of 30 but I don’t think they’re really necessary: you can just do the same job with acetone-soaked cotton wool and kitchen foil which you have cut into rectangles big enough to wrap around your finger. Still, I had bought them so I used them.

You use the included dropper to drip the acetone onto the cotton wool pad inside the little foil sachet then place your pre-buffed polished nail against the pad, and wrap the remaining foil around your finger for 20 minutes. If you’re doing this, leave the thumbnail until last. Humankind’s domination of the world is linked to our opposable thumbs for a reason. I did one hand at a time but found it better to pre-prepare the five wraps for my right hand in advance.

Then you go an sit and read for about 20 minutes or more while the acetone starts to break down the gel. You then use a gel nail removing tool (essentially a metal scraper) to prise the softened polish from your nail.

Now, this is where the damage occurs, I think. The luxury of having a home kit, though, is that you can sit with the foils on for a bit longer than the time allocate for this purpose during a salon appointment, and the gel is softer so the scraping can be less vicious than a salon manicurist’s. You’re also going to be more gentle on your nails than a manicurist and, if you do it over your bathroom basin, there’s no mess.

Sensationail does sell a kit of nail shields which are, as far as I can make out, sheets of plastic which you attach using their sticky backs to your nails and then shape, paint and cure. The idea is that you don’t have to use acetone to remove these. You just soak them in warm water for 5 minutes and then peel them off. It seems to me that these are for the use of the sort of people who can wear car-to-bar shoes; my nails would be in warm water for five minutes so often that my carefully painted nail shields would always fall off. I’m quite happy to be corrected on this, if anyone knows any different.

I was absolutely dreading this part but actually it was far less traumatic than in a salon manicure and, I think, my nails haven’t suffered anywhere near as much as before. It’s true that they do feel a little dry but I’ll put some almond oil on them before I go to sleep tonight and let them absorb that.

Another great aspect of a home kit is that I can leave as long as I like between removal and re-application for the nails to breathe and rest and recover a bit. That’s the theory, anyway. All I need them to do is not break before tomorrow afternoon when, having made the lunch, done the ironing and cleaned my kitchen floor I can finally relax and redo my nails. I’m aiming for a more cerise pink this time, because there have been no breakages in 10 days and they are a little longer.

I am, so far, very happy with the Sensationail system and I think it’s going to save me a lot money on manicures and offer much more time flexibility than making salon appointments. The polishes are £15 from Boots, and there is a wide range of colours but the bottles of polish are surprisingly small. Having said that, I have often paid this much for a larger bottle of nail polish only for it to separate in the bottle after only a couple of uses because conventional nail polish was such a faff and I didn’t get around to doing it.

As I said at the beginning of this post, there is a polish to nail option and I’ll write about that when I try it. I’ll keep the Sensationail procedure and its effect on my nails under review and report back if there’s any change but initially I’m happy with he condition of my nails after one home gel manicure.

I hope all of that is useful.