Hard gel nails need to be filed off the nail, which means they have a lot more wear time in them than soft gel. Board-certified dermatologist Shari Lipner told the American Academy of Dermatology Association that hard gel on your fingernails could take around six months to grow out, while your toenails may not need doing again for a whopping one year to a year and a half. As for soft gel nails? In a polish or extension form, soft gel nails are more likely to last somewhere between two and four weeks on your fingernails.
It’s also worth noting that hard gel nails also tend to have more durability than soft gel nails. “The appeal of hard gel is that it can offer a lot of durability and strength, especially important if it’s being used for nail extensions,” Eunice Park, a nail artist and the research and development manager at Aprés Nail, explained to Makeup.com. Soft gel may be too (you guessed it) soft if you want to go for super long nails, so soft gel extensions are usually only used for shorter manicures, as Park confirmed to Elle. Equally, hard and soft gel manicures both have soft gel polishes beat if you want to extend or change the shape of your nails, as a normal polish won’t be able to do that.
