Things You'll Need:
- Acrylic powder
- Acrylic liquid monomer
- Acrylic nail primer (optional)
- Sable-hair paint brush(medium size)
- Nail glue
- Assorted size, glue-on nail tips for each finger.
- Rubbing alcohol and cotton ball
- Paper towels
- Small 1oz. glass dish for nail liquid
- Nail clippers
- Coarse grit nail file
- Fine grit nail file
- Sweet almond oil, or olive oil
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Step 1
1)Have all of your supplies ready
2)Size all of the glue-on nail tips that you'll need and place them on a paper towel at your work area.
3)Have the acrylic powder and nail brush ready on your work area, and put a little of the liquid monomer in the glass dish.
4)Take a paper towel folded twice to be able to wipe off your brush as you apply the product.
5)Have your nail glue, rubbing alcohol, nail primer liquid, nail clipper and nail files ready at your work area. -
Step 2
Now you are ready to begin the nail preparation. First, shape your natural nail with the fine-grit nail file. Try to remove as much cuticle as possible because the acrylic will adhere better if the nail is well manicured.
Lightly remove the shine off of the natural nail with the fine-grit nail file. Removing the shine would like buffing the nail, only without using too much pressure.
Next you will need to sanitize your nail with the alcohol to remove the bacteria/moisture which could get trapped under the acrylic and cause infection and/or greenish molds from trapped moisture.
Then for better adhesion brush the nail with the liquid nail primer which should chemically bond with the acrylic powder/liquid product. I have found that if you remove the shine enough off of the nail and dry out the nail well enough with the rubbing alcohol the primer isn't always necessary.
Now you are ready to begin applying the glue-on nail tip to the free edge of your natural nail. This is only the first step because you will later coat the entire natural nail and nail tip with the acrylic product. -
Step 3
Applying glue-on nail tips:
Take a nail tip that matches the width of your nail from side nail groove to side nail groove. Place a small drop of nail glue on the inside of the glue-on nail tip and roll the nail tip from side to side to distribute the glue on the inside edge of the tip. Quikly place the tip of the glue-on nail tip and place it on the free edge of your nail in a rolling motion to prevent air bubbles from forming under the nail tip. clip nail tip and shape as desired. Repeat the previous steps for removing shine and sanitizing the nail again on the glued on nail tip. -
Step 4
You are ready to apply the acrylic.
Dip your sable brush into the nail liquid and lightly wipe off excess liquid on the folded paper towel. Place the very tip of the sable brush into the acrylic powder and allow the brush to grab a small bead of acrylic powder without whipping the brush in the powder.
Quickly place the small bead of acrylic onto the edge of the glued on nail tip. Allow the acrylic to melt into place on the edge without shaping it too much with your brush. As it drys just a little you can mold it a bit better by lightly patting it into place and wiping it downward.
Do this again but get a bit more acrylic on your brush for the middle area of your nail. This area(top of where natural nail would normally start to curve downward)needs to be a bit thicker because this will be where the nail absorbs stress. Do the same shaping technique as you did on the edge.
For the final area around the cuticle use a smaller, wetter bead of acrylic. Place the bead about 1/8 inch from the cuticle and let the bead melt into place. Wipe it downward too as it drys just a little. You can wipe around the groove of the nail after wipping off your brush and dipping into the liquid so that no acrylic overlaps the skin.
Allow the acrylic to dry and shape and buff into shape with the coarse-grit nail file. after you have shapped your acrylic nail as desired, apply a bit of the oil on your acrylic nail and buff with the fine-grit nail file.
