People love to hate on the humble gel manicure. Popularised in the nineties and noughties – though around since the eighties – gel formulas last longer than their supermarket-bought polish counterparts.
Rather than chipping off, they stay put until you decide otherwise. Nowadays, you’ve got myriad types to choose from: the popular BIAB (Builder in a Bottle) adds structure and strength to weak nails, and is easy to infill or soak off with the help of a professional.
Hard gel similarly adds strength and structure, but can only be filed off. You might opt for hard gel if you have really long talons, because it’s less flexible than soft gel, which is what you probably think of when you envision a gel manicure.
Soft gels are applied and then cured under UV or LED lamps, and can be gently soaked off to preserve the nail’s integrity underneath. You may have heard about gel nails causing allergic reactions, which can happen if your skin is repeatedly exposed to uncured chemicals.
Best at-home gel manicure kits
Best overall – Mylee The Main Gel Nail Polish Kit: £95, Sephora.co.uk
Best for nail health – Manucurist Starter Kit: £63, Lookfantastic.com
Best for ‘clean girl’ nails – 14 Day Mani Gel Polish At-Home Kit: £79, 14daymanicure.com
This is why it’s so important to find the best nail kits with the right lamps, especially when dabbling with at-home manicures without a professional to guide you. Each brand and type of polish cures using different wavelengths, so you should always use the brand’s recommended lamp. Ahead, you’ll find the best gel nail kits to use at home, reviewed by me: a trained nail technician and beauty journalist of over a decade.
But first, what does the recent gel nail ban have to do with all of this? Well, the term “gel nail ban” is a bit misleading. Gel nails themselves aren’t banned at all: recent legislation simply states that a particular ingredient (called trimethylbenzoyl diphenylphosphine oxide – TPO for short) needs to be off the shelves by February 2027.
To understand why, I spoke to Dr. Christine Hall, who explained that TPO was recently recategorised as a “1B carcinogenic, mutagenic, or reprotoxic” substance, with 1B meaning it poses a presumed risk to humans rather than a proven one.
This presumption is based on animal testing, with the animal exposure greatly outweighing our own – some animals even ingested it during testing. To put things into perspective, the amount of TPO in nail polishes would have to be multiplied by around a thousand to pose any kind of fertility risk to humans. Either way, every at-home kit recommended here is completely TPO-free, so you can decorate your digits to your heart’s content – no safety concerns necessary.
How we tested
Every gel nail kit featured in this round-up has been rigorously tested by me in the years since I trained as a nail technician. I do my nails once every two weeks, and often test new formulas and kits as I do so. As someone who tests beauty products for a living, I can assure you that I’m not easily impressed. Here, I’ve considered formula viscosity, shades, cure time, specific ingredients, ease of use and more. If a kit didn’t genuinely impress me, it didn’t make the list.
Mylee The Main Gel Nail Polish Kit
★★★★★
What we love: Vegan and cruelty-free, cures in just 60 seconds, HEMA-free and TPO-free, and comes with a builder gel
Take note: You can’t choose your colours
If I were recommending a gel nail kit to a friend, this is the one I’d name-drop. The whole thing – the lamp, the polishes, the remover, the prep solution and the tools – is most like a professional kit, complete with a buffer, builder gel, nail files and a tiny brush for cleaning up messy edges.
The formulas themselves are most like professional formulas: smooth, one-swipe opaque, and long-lasting. Opaque polishes are easier to use because they’re less likely to look streaky and don’t need as many coats – ideal for amateur nail enthusiasts. I personally adore the 2-in-1 Nail Prep & Wipe, too. I keep it in my kit at all times to whisk away any residual oils or debris on the nail plate, which makes the actual polish last much longer.
Manucurist Starter Kit
★★★★☆
What we love: Vegan and cruelty-free, includes natural ingredients where possible – like potato-derived sorbitol to create a smooth texture – HEMA-free and TPO-free, great for sensitive skin and nails, can be used by those with nail polish allergies (always confirm this with a medical professional), and124 shades to choose from
Take note: Slight drying time, cannot be mixed and matched with other brands, due to its unique and innovative nature, and no nail tools included
Manucurist’s Green Flash formulas are frankly magical. The innovative polishes cure under LED lights like proper gels; they don’t chip, much like proper gels; and yet, unlike proper gels, they can be swiped away with the brand’s own remover and a cotton pad, a bit like a real, old-school nail polish from your local pharmacy.
I particularly love the wide range of colours to choose from, and the fact that I can remove everything in a flash is a really big selling point – gel removal is what I usually find most tedious. It’s easy to expand on your kit, too – the brand has other compatible colours and tools if you fancy a bit of nail art. The only slight downside? Manucurist formulas do smudge a bit even after curing, so you need to give yourself a bit of drying time.
14 Day Mani Au Naturel HEMA-Free Gel Polish At-Home Kit
★★★★☆
What we love: Vegan and cruelty-free, HEMA-free and TPO-free, great for sensitive nails, and comes with a professional-grade cuticle pusher
Take note: You can’t choose your colours, and it can be hard to get an opaque finish
If you’re after an at-home kit specifically for that “clean girl” look, try this. The formulas are inexplicably glossy and deliciously delicate: there’s a candy-floss pink; a milky white; a juicy, sparkly pink; and a gentle rose gold that looks a little bit metallic, much like a subtle cat-eye.
For such sheer concoctions by design, I’m impressed by how easy it is to get a streak-free finish, and I also love how this kit looks – it’s all very chic and pared back, with matchy-matchy white bottles regardless of the polish colour inside.
What are the best at-home gel nail kits?
Ultimately, all three systems featured here are fantastic choices that would serve an at-home nail artist well, but each one excels in slightly different areas: Manucurist is best for nail health, thanks to its innovative plant-derived ingredients; 14 Day Mani is best for those who covet the “clean girl” aesthetic; and Mylee is best for budding professionals.
I happily use any of these depending on my mood. In fact, right now, I’m sporting a couple of coats of 14 Day Mani’s “Champagne”, though I used Mylee’s Nail Prep & Wipe solution first, of course.
Why trust me?
Humeara Mohamed is a freelance beauty editor with over a decade of experience. She's also worked as a copywriter and consultant across brands like Cult Beauty, MAC Cosmetics, Estée Lauder and Jo Malone London. While primarily a beauty expert and trained nail technician, Humeara enjoys living out her consumerist dream by also writing about all things fashion, home and tech.
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