TROUBLESHOOTING
Having trouble with curing?
Some highly pigmented shades can require a little more careful attention to ensure a full cure.
Here are the best practices for a high-quality application:
- Mixing: For highly pigmented shades, ensure that the polish is very well mixed. A polish shaker is recommended.
- Application: Thin coats are extra important for these shades.
- Curing: A lamp of at least 48 watts is required for the best cure.
- Why is my gel polish chipping?
Some quick background. Prior to releasing our gel polish line we polled random nail techs, asking if it was beneficial to also launch our own primers and base coats (we wanted a polish line that was universal). The consensus was many techs have their own system and preferred products for prep. The pro of that was through testing, trying different product combinations, overall our gel polish performed 100% without issues regarding chipping and peeling etc. Like anything there will be a small percentage of products that when used together will not give optimal performance. A very general answer we always give in these cases is as follows.
What is the system/exact steps for prep of the nail you use?
Unfortunately, in most cases with lifting, chipping, and peeling it’s due to the client's nail bed being oilier than average or their nails are thin and bending. So needing to do extra steps dehydrating, roughing up with a file, more layers of bond or base coat will be needed. Most often if not always, it is the foundation that the polish is sitting on that is the issue not usually the gel polish itself (and this is for most reputable brands not just ours).
Here are some tips to get the best results:
- For clients who have thinner, bendable nails: Apply your base coat twice to build up some strength, or do a gel overlay to build a thicker stronger foundation before applying your gel polish.
- For oilier nail beds or clients that have busy hands during an appointment (using their phone, touching their hair/face): Prime and base coat as you go or just do one hand at a time. If you do all 10 nails and the other hand is free, the client will end up touching the “prepped” nail beds and compromise the surface for adhesion of the gel polish.
- Cap the free edge.
- Make sure the nails have completely cured in between layers, and final cure before and after topcoat. (Refer to timing on the bottle).