It’s a Wrap: CND vs Hands Down

I’ve had a lot of questions about how the Hands Down Wraps compare to the CND wraps so I decided to put it to the test over a two day period and got some pretty consistent results.  Here’s a photo rundown of a set:

The nails

This CND Shellac set contained some custom glitter.

CND Shellac Wraps

• Plastic backed, absorbent pad concentrates acetone on polish while minimizing contact on skin.

• Traps heat to accelerate penetration, quickening removal time

After 10 minutes, the Shellac wraps were removed. Photo below shows how acetone penetrated the full nail of Shellac, making it gelatinous. It peeled/lifted as soon as the wrap was removed. Removal was clean, even for glitter.

Hands Down

• Hands Down wraps focus on non-slip, band-aid like material for secure adhesion to finger.
• Concentrates acetone to nail
• The design is open ended, but I also wrapped to cover a tip

Next, the Hands Down wraps were removed.  You can see from the photo that the tips were not saturated – the polish is different in color.

I was unable to flake the product, so it went back under.

One comment everyone made was that they were very uncomfortable pretty quickly.  I thought maybe I’d wrapped them too tightly but finally pinned down that their fingers were cold. Ice cold.  The layer of insulation on the plastic backed CND version did alot to keep fingers comfortable, along with accelerating the removal.

So a plastic bag was placed over one finger to see if that would help.

It made a difference, but in the end the tips were still quite troublesome.

The difference between the CND photo and the Hands Down photo is that the CND nail has flaked off without any removal effort on my part.  The Hands Down nail required effort.  This was the result I had with all of the Hands Down removals, with or without glitter.

Recap:

Hands Down

Pros

• Bandage like material secured quickly to finger no matter how much acetone was used
  • Cons – clients commented they felt like they were in emergency room instead of salon
  • Cons – Lack of plastic backing made fingers very cold as acetone evaporated
  • Cons – Lack of plastic took longer to penetrate tips of nails

CND

Pros

• Aesthetically pleasing, heat trapping, effective removal
  • Cons – Absorbent pads easy to over-saturate, which may cause difficulty in securing

Price points are the same for the products.  With a better client (and manicurist) experience, the winner this round is CND.