Shellac removal: What has it done to my nails?

So this is what my nails look like after removing my shellac. I have had nails this long before but I would always have at least one broken nail. So shellac has allowed me to grow my nails much better than I've been able to previously. However, the removal process was not one that I or my nails liked.

I'm sure most people have seen or heard of using tin foil to remove nail polish. Nail polish remover evaporates and wrapping the nail in tin foil with cotton wool soaked in remover pressed against the nail helps to prevent that. This is essentially the only way to remove shellac as the usual method of just rubbing it off with a bit of remover just doesn't even touch shellac. 

You're also supposed to use pure acetone to remove shellac but they didn't have any when I looked so I bought a false nail remover which had very high acetone concentration. Acetone is very drying and somewhat damaging to the nails so we're not off to a brilliant start already.

But as I learned, not even the tin foil method was enough to remove shellac. I had to then use a cuticle stick to gently peel of the polish. Soaking the nails had made the polish crumbly but did not remove it. Also when I say gently remove, when I used the cuticle stick gently it left a thin translucent layer of polish on the nails. Not wanting to really scrape at my nails, I ended up soaking them again. Then the rest of it came of with medium effort (I tried not to be rough but it simply didn't come off without a bit of not exactly gentle effort).

Despite all my attempts to try to damage my nails as little as possible, my nails are most definitely damaged. I can see through the whites of my nails and I could feel lots of ridges and roughness on the surface of my nails. I've now buffed and shined them which hasn't exactly done anything for the thickness of the nails but they now don't feel like a nail file to the touch.

I don't regret having the shellac and I've done a full post all about my experience of shellac. As I said at the start, the length I've achieved because of the shellac protecting the nails has been awesome. But I'll definitely have to weigh up the damage that removal causes before I get them done again.

Lots of love,

Nancy x