LIVE Beginner Nail Education: Acrylic Nail Fundamentals for Beginners

Added: 2026-05-27

[00:00:47]All right. Hello. Hello everyone. I know it has been a while since we've been on here live on our YouTube channel, but I'm glad to have you guys all with us today. Hope you all had a wonderful holiday weekend. And hopefully you are ready to jump back in and do some nails and learn some great techniques today.

[00:01:08]So today we're actually going to be working with our acrylic system. And we're going to be working with our traditional acrylic system. So the pinkle labeled powders and the pinkle labeled liquid. So, you want to make sure that you're using both of those.

[00:01:21]And let's see. Sherry says, "Hi, love your videos. I'm learning a lot, you guys. I am so excited to have you all here." And I hope that you do learn a lot because there's so much to know about working with acrylic that all the little details that I'm going to teach you guys today are hopefully going to help you to do some better acrylic nails and do a little bit better application.

[00:01:45]So, I'm just going through really quickly um prepping the nails. If you are looking for more information on how to prep the nails and a little bit more specific information on how to prep the nails, definitely check out the rest of our channel. We've got so many different videos for you guys to learn really any technique that we have available um and any product that we have available. We have probably a video for you to learn how to do that technique. So, check out our videos on prep if you're looking for more education and information on how to properly prep your nails for enhancements. But to finish up my prep here, I'm going to just apply a couple of coats of my protein bond. And this is our bonder. It is not technically a primer, so it's not any of that methic acid that a lot of other primers have.

[00:02:35]This is more like a double-sided tape.

[00:02:38]So, as I'm applying this, you're going to see that it doesn't dry back to that chalky finish that a lot of primers do.

[00:02:46]It's going to stay sticky feeling, and this is what's going to help to adhere down to that natural nail, but then that sticky surface is really going to allow you to or allow your product to adhere really well to um that natural nail. So, the protein bond just works like a double-sided tape, giving everything great adhesion. And when I do my enhancements, whether it's acrylics, hard gels, or even full cover tip applications, I like to use two coats of the protein bond just for that really good added insurance to make sure that I'm getting good coverage all the way through that nail and that my product is going to adhere really, really well. So, make sure two coats of your protein bond when you're doing enhancements. And again, today we are going to be working with acrylic. I'm going to show you guys some techniques on how to pick up the acrylic and how to do overlays and then how to do some um sculptured nails. So, make sure to stick around. And today I'm using our cover pink acrylic. And this is actually one of my favorite colors to use. It's a great color for just an overall solid color on your nails. It's also going to be a great background if you want to do maybe gel polishes or something like that. It's just going to give you a really good kind of a clean background and you're going to get a really nice even coverage over the whole nail. So, we are going to start with I've got my powder here. I've got Let me back my camera up here. So, just so you guys can see kind of how I'm going to work here. I've got my powder. I've got some table towels and it's just these same table towels that I have spread out in front of me. I just like to cut those into smaller pieces. So this way when I am working and I'm wiping my brush as I'm wiping my brush on the table towel as it gets maybe full of acrylic or full of monomer, I can just peel off that top one and I have a nice clean place to wipe my brush again. So you always want to make sure that you're using a good quality table towel and that you are wiping your brush clean on that table towel. And you guys, everything that I'm using here today is from Young Nails.

[00:04:54]The table towels are Young Nails. The liquid and powder dappish. The brush I'm using, this is also Young Nails brush.

[00:05:01]This is our signature. It's actually Greg's signature series brush. It is a size 12. So, you can see it is a little bit of a larger bristle in there, but you can also see that when you roll that back to a point, you can kind of see I'm rolling the brush between my fingers and drawing that across the table towel. it is going to come back to that really nice tight point. So, great brush to use. You're going to be able to pick up large pearls, small pearls, and I'm going to show you how to do that in just a second here. But, I just want to give you kind of a little a little information, a little bit of knowledge about the brush. So, you're going to see it's got the silver part here. That's the feral, and that's what holds the bristles in in the brush. If you notice, if you look right through here, there is a small little crimp in the brush. So, if I turn the brush on the side, you're going to notice, let me come in nice and close. You're going to notice that that brush has a crimp. So, it's flattened the brush right through here. So, again, if I turn that, it's going to be wider here. And then we turn it here, and it's going to have that crimp. So, when you're working and you're working with your acrylic, you're going to use your brush flat with that crimp. You're going to pick up your pearls with that brush flat with that crimp. You're not going to be using pressure on the side of the brush. Okay? If you start using pressure on the side of the brush, that's actually going to push your bristles out of alignment and you're not going to get an even application or an even pearl to pick up. Okay? So, make sure that when you're working, you're always keeping an eye on where that little crimp is. And just a quick little note to show you're to give those those of you that may be beginners, keep an eye on where the label is and where Greg's signature is.

[00:06:41]That is in line with that little crimp.

[00:06:44]So, if you ever turn your brush and you see that that signature is off to the side, that means that you're holding your brush probably at the wrong angle.

[00:06:51]Okay? So, make sure that you are keeping in line straight with that label and flat with that crimp.

[00:07:00]Um, somebody says, uh, they have a they have a different brush from from another company, another another location that they purchased a brush and it won't stay pointed. You guys, brushes are there are different um different qualities of brushes. Our brush um Greg's signature series brush, this is 100% Kolinsky sable, so it is a very high quality natural bristle. And if you take care of your brush, it will last you a long, long time. So, let's talk about taking care of your brush. How do you take care of your brush? Well, first of all, keeping it clean is important. So, making sure that as you're working, when you're wiping your brush, wipe your brush again flat with that crimp. So, as I wipe my brush out, let me come in nice and close. I always wipe my brush flat.

[00:07:46]So, I'm going to pull my brush through that table towel, wiping out any residue. I don't just give it a quick little dab like that. So you guys, you can see as I just kind of dab or kind of kind of press and kind of just push my brush a little bit, you can see how those bristles get out of alignment. So make sure that when you're wiping your brush, you're wiping it flat. Keep that that crimp in there flat. And then also once it's cleaned out, roll your brush back to a point and it's going to come back nice and tight to that point. Okay.

[00:08:19]Um, all again you guys, all of the products and the brush that I'm using here today are available on our website, youngs.com, and our moderators do have that pinned in the chat there for you.

[00:08:29]So, you can always check that out. Okay, so that is our brush. Now, let's actually get into maybe picking up some acrylic because that is there's a lot of different little techniques that I'm going to show you here when you're picking up your acrylic. So, I've got a little bit of monomer in there. I'm going to use a little bit of that. That is clean monomer that I just put in here before we started. But always make sure that you are using clean monomer. And you know what? I'm actually going to change that out because I did I did use a little bit of that. I'm going to make sure that I have clean, fresh monomer. I can see a little bit of glitter kind of um sparkling at the bottom of my daffin dish there. So, always make sure that you are working with clean monomer.

[00:09:10]that's going to help to get you a really good um a good consistency to your acrylic pearl. So, making sure that you're not using dirty or contaminated monomer um because that contaminated monomer can actually cause you challenges when you're picking up your pearl. So, I'm just going to take a little bit more of my monomer and I'm going to touch my brush to the top of the bottle. Pooch in so you guys can see that. touch my brush to the top of the bottle and I am gonna pour that just right down the brush. And that's how I'm going to be able to pour my monomer without it dribbling down the side of my my bottle or down the dapping dish or anything like that. Now, notice that I don't fill my dappen dish up completely.

[00:09:56]I only fill that up to probably about the top of the bristles. So, if I have my brush in there, my dappin dish is only full to about here. That's all that I need to use. I don't need to fill it all the way to the top because you're probably going to waste more product if you do fill it to the top and you're also not going to be able to wipe your brush properly. So, when you're wiping your brush, we're not going to just take the brush and just kind of wipe here, wipe there, dab, dab, dab, dab, dab. If you do that, you're not going to get a consistent pearl every time. Okay? So, what we're going to do instead, we're actually going to start by just putting a little bit of pressure into our brush.

[00:10:37]Now, I'm going to show you guys what I'm doing outside of the dish, but this is what I'm doing in that dappen dish. I'm putting my brush in. I'm touching the bottom of the dappen dish, and I'm putting a little bit of pressure onto my brush. I'm not going to kill my brush.

[00:10:51]I'm not going to put that much pressure to where it's really putting pressure at the base of those bristles because if you do start to put too much br um pressure down at the base of those bristles, that or that um that metal right down here could actually start to cut into your bristles and start to cut off your bristles. So, just give it a little bit of pressure and that way what's going to happen is you're going to release any air bubbles that are in your brush. Now, when you're working, let me show you guys this one more time here. As you wipe your brush, notice that those bristles do start to kind of spread out a little bit. So, as I wipe my brush, I put a little pressure. The bristles spread out. And as they spread out, that's allowing air in between there. So, when we're working with our brush, we want to make sure that we're getting rid of that air, those little air pockets that are in between the bristles. So that's why we take our brush and we just put a little bit of pressure. By putting a little bit of pressure onto our brush, that's going to help to release those little air pockets or those little air bubbles in between your those bristles and you're going to have a nice clean pearl. So you're not going to end up putting those little air bubbles into your pearl of acrylic.

[00:12:02]Okay? So give it just a quick little bounce in there. Like I said, don't kill it. Don't use a ton of pressure, but just enough to release those little air bubbles into your monomer. Okay? Now, when we pick up our acrylic, we're not going to just drag that brush all the way up the side of the dappen dish.

[00:12:19]Instead, what we're going to do is I'm going to lift my brush out. I'm going to tap just the back side of the brush. And when I tap the back of the brush like that, you're going to notice, and if you guys watch right here at the point of the brush, when I do that, I tap, it's going to release liquid. So, every time I tap the back of my brush, it's going to release more liquid. Now, depending on the size of pearl you want to pick up, if you want to pick up a large pearl, just give it one tap. Okay? What one tap is going to do is it's going to release a little bit of that monomer so your pearl is not going to be too runny, but it's going to leave the right amount of product in there to pick up a large pearl. Now, when I pick up my pearl, I actually want you guys to see this. So, I tap the back of my brush on the dapping dish. Now, what I'm going to do is I've just tapped the back of the brush and I've pushed all the monomer to the front side of the brush. So, what I want to do is I actually want to use the front side of the brush to pick up my pearl. So, I'm actually going to take my brush. I'm going to turn it over. So, I'm going to use the front side of my brush that has all the monomer in it, and I'm going to use that to pick up my pearl. Now, I'm not going to just jam my brush into my powder. I'm not going to swirl it around. I'm not going to scrape down in there or scoop down in there.

[00:13:40]What that's going to do, that's going to leave you with kind of a I always call it a chunky monkey. That's going to give you a chunky monkey pearl. It's very dry. It's kind of crunchy. It's crusty.

[00:13:50]And that's not going to adhere well to the nail. So, if you were to try to set that down onto the nail, what's going to happen is all of that extra powder is going to go onto the nail, but your pearl is not. Okay. So, what we want to do, I'm going to wipe that out of my brush. Clean out my brush. I'm going to always tap my powder down again. So that way I've got a nice clean surface to wipe my brush on. So what we're going to do instead of just kind of scooping down in there or anything like that, I'm going to show you guys this from the side view here a little bit. I'm going to keep my brush at about a 45° angle and I'm going to do a press and pull motion. So I'm going to press my brush down, but I'm going to pull my brush kind of in the same motion. So it's a press and pull in one motion. And what this is gonna do, let me show you guys what this is going to do. This is actually gonna keep my product on one side of my brush. So you notice now I don't have product on the back of my brush. I just have that pearl on the front. This is what's going to help to keep a clean release. So now I can set that down onto the nail and lift up my brush. I don't have any product residue on either side of the brush. If I were to pick up a pearl and again, if I get product on the back of my brush and I go to set that down onto the nail, I lift up my brush. You can see how much product is still left on that brush. It's going to clog up my brush and it's probably going to make it a little bit harder to do my application. So, we want to make sure that we're doing that press and pull motion. So, that way we're going to get a nice clean pearl. Okay. So, once again, I'm going to wipe out my brush.

[00:15:29]Make sure my brush is clean. I'm going to press my brush into my liquid.

[00:15:32]Release those little air bubbles in there. I'm going to tap the back side.

[00:15:36]This time we're just going to tap it one time. And we're going to turn the brush over. I'm going to come in at an angle.

[00:15:43]I'm going to press and pull. And then I'm going to bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

[00:15:48]Bounce. And what that's going to do is every time you bounce, it releases liquid from the brush and absorbs powder. So, we're going to release liquid, absorb powder. Release liquid, absorb powder. So, depending on the size of pearl you need is going to depend on how many bounces you do. So, again, if we are creating a large pearl, we're going to only tap the back once, releasing the liquid. We're going to turn the brush over. We're going to press and pull. Bounce, bounce, bounce.

[00:16:20]So, usually three, four, maybe five bounces just depending on that size of the pearl. Now, one other thing I want you guys to take a look at here is see where on the brush I've actually picked up that pearl. Okay, right at that end of the brush, right towards the point, if I turn that over, do you see this dark area towards the point? That's the area that you want to be picking up your pearl with. Okay, so you can see where my pearl is on that point. right in that dark area. So, from that dark area forward. If I start getting my acrylic back up here into that lighter area, that's going to tend to clog up my brush a little bit more. So, making sure that when you're picking up your pearl, we're going to tap out the back of our brush.

[00:17:06]Turn my brush over. We're going to press and pull. Bounce, bounce, bounce, keeping that pearl at the point or the um the at the point of your brush. Okay.

[00:17:17]Now, one other thing you guys, there's so many little details into picking up acrylic and getting the proper consistency. So, I want to make sure that you guys see all of these little details really up close. Okay. Now, when you're picking up your pearl, you want to kind of look at the consistency. So, as I pick this up, you guys, I'm going to come in really, really close here for you. So, let me come in nice and close.

[00:17:42]There we go. Okay. I'm going to press and pull. I'm gonna bounce, bounce, bounce. I want to look at the texture of that pearl. Do you see? As soon as you pick up that pearl, you're going to see it as a little bit more of an orange peel texture. Okay? And I'm going to do this again so you guys can see, but as you pick that up, it's going to start out as an orange peel texture and then within about four to five seconds, it's going to melt out into more of that smooth pearl look. Okay? So, let me do that one more time. And I want you guys to watch really, really closely here. So again, we're going to press and pull.

[00:18:17]We're going to bounce, bounce, bounce.

[00:18:20]We see that orange peel texture. Now it's melting, melting, melting, melting.

[00:18:26]Now it's that really nice smooth pearl.

[00:18:29]Okay, that's exactly what we want to happen. If you pick up a pearl and you go ahead and you pick that up, bounce, bounce, bounce, and it takes a long time or it doesn't get to that pearl consistency, chances are your product is going to be too dry and it's not going to flow nice and smoothly onto that nail and it's not going to adhere well. So, you want to make sure that you're getting the proper texture and that proper consistency. Okay, now you guys, let me show you this here real quick. As I've been working, my table towel here is getting clogged up. I've got a lot of product on there. So, I'm going to peel off that top table towel and I'm going to give myself a clean place to wipe my brush. If I can grab that edge. There we go. Always make sure that you have a nice clean area to wipe your brush on so that you're not going to clog up your brush and your brush is going to stay nice and clean. Okay. Now, that was to show you how to pick up a large pearl.

[00:19:32]If we're going to pick up more of a medium pearl, you're just going to basically do the same technique, but you're going to dab out a little bit more of the liquid and pick up less powder. So, for a large pearl, we tap one time. For more of a mediumsiz pearl, tap one, two times. Okay? If you want to pick up an even smaller pearl, tap once, twice, three, four. Just depending on the size of pearl you want to pick up, you're going to just drain out more of that liquid. So again, a large pearl, we tap once. Press and pull. Bounce, bounce, bounce. We've got a good sized pearl. If we want more of a mediumsiz, tap, tap.

[00:20:20]Just going to give that one quick little tap. I'm going to press and pull.

[00:20:24]Bounce. Bounce. So, two bounces. That's going to give me more of a mediumsized pearl. Okay. If I want an even smaller pearl, tap tap tap tap. I'm still using that same technique. Still that same press and pull, but now I'm just going to bounce maybe twice. And as my pearls get smaller, okay, you can see large, medium, and small. Notice that as I'm going into my powder with the large pearl, I'm putting a little more pressure. I'm going a little deeper into that pearl or into that powder to pick up that large pearl with more of a medium. Actually, you guys, let me do this again. I'm going to use different areas on my on my powder. So, a large pearl. Bounce. Bounce. So, I'm pressing that brush down into that powder a little bit more. For a medium, dabbing out a little bit more of that liquid.

[00:21:15]I'm not using quite as much pressure.

[00:21:19]Medium-sized pearl for that even smaller pearl. I'm using even less pressure.

[00:21:26]So, a smaller pearl. So, you can see in my little divots here, I've got a large, a medium, and a small. So, depending on the size of pearl you want to pick up, you're going to adjust the amount of liquid you have in your brush and the pressure that you're using and the bouncing that you're doing in that powder. Okay. All right, you guys. Let me know in the chat. Give me a little thumbs up or throw some hearts into the chat if that's making sense to you. If you are enjoying what you're learning here today, let me know. I love to see that that feedback into the chat there.

[00:21:59]So, let's go on to actually our application. So, when we're applying our acrylic, what we're going to be doing, I want you guys to see this. Actually, let me change out my table towel here again.

[00:22:11]Give me a nice clean place to wipe my brush on.

[00:22:15]And when we work and apply our acrylic, the angle of the finger and the angle of your brush is very important. So when you're applying acrylic, you want to make sure I'm going to show you guys this from the side. You want to make sure that you're not holding that finger flat and holding your brush flat on the nail. Okay, we're going to start our application right at our cuticle area.

[00:22:39]So, I'm going to actually angle that finger downward so I can use the point of my brush to press out my cuticle area and get my cuticle area nice and thin and tapered. I want to show you what can happen if you keep the nail flat. So, if the nail is flat like this and I'm going to put my product on with my brush flat to the nail like this, let me show you what happens. You're basically gonna make a big old mess. Okay. So, if we pick up our pearl and we set that right down onto the nail, I'm going to set that down again with my brush flat and the nail flat. I lift up. Do you see?

[00:23:15]First of all, let's look at it from this way. Do you see how much product is coming off the sides? I would really have to chase that product and try to get that back up onto the nail. And you guys, we want to make sure that we're not getting product on the skin, okay?

[00:23:29]Product does not need to come in contact with the skin. It should not come in contact with the skin. And if we put all that pressure on there and we push our product out to the sides, that product is going to flow off and come on in contact with the skin. Okay. Now, the second thing I want you guys to see this again from the side view. Do you see how thick that product is right back at that cuticle area? That's because I put pressure with my brush right through the center of my brush here and I put pressure onto the nail that kept it thick right at that cuticle area. So, what we want to do instead I'm going to clean this one off here real quick. What we want to do instead is we actually want to let this product work for us.

[00:24:14]So, what I'm going to do is I'm going to angle the finger downward and I'm going to use my brush at this angle. So, instead of it being flat onto the nail here, I'm going to angle my brush here.

[00:24:26]So, we're going to a be able to press that cuticle area and keep our product nice and tight and thin by the cuticle.

[00:24:34]Okay. Um, somebody says, "Do you keep the cuticle area extra runny to get it closer to the cuticle?" You want to make sure that you're working at the proper consistency. You don't want it too wet to where it's running and getting out of control. And also, if you have your product too wet, actually you guys, let me pick up a pearl that's going to be too wet. So, a lot of times people pick up that pearl and it's going to be too wet. And do you see how thin? And let me come in a little closer. Almost transparent or translucent, you guys. I don't know the difference between those two words, but you can still you can start to see that natural nail underneath that is nice and thin, but your product doesn't have any structure to it. It needs the proper consistency.

[00:25:22]It needs the proper liquid and powder to give you structure and durability at that cuticle area. If you think about it, you guys, I was just at the beach this weekend and I was thinking about nails as I was on the beach and I was watching people build sand castles. If it's the same kind of concept as building a sand castle. When you build a sand castle, you want to make sure that you have enough sand, but you also have enough water to keep the structure. If you have a a bead that is too much liquid and not enough powder, it's kind of like building a sand castle with too much water and not enough sand. You're not going to have structure to hold up that sand castle. Same thing with your acrylic. If you have too much acry or too much liquid and not enough powder, you're not going to have enough structure in that in that enhancement.

[00:26:13]Okay. So, whoever that person was asking, um, do you keep the cuticle area extra runny? No, I do not. I still keep it at the correct consistency, but I'm going to show you now how to get that product and get that proper structure and still maintain the um the cuticle area nice and thin. Okay. So guys, let me show you this. We're going to pick up our pearl. We're going to press and pull. We're going to bounce, bounce, bounce. I'm going to just wait one 2 3 4 maybe up to 5 seconds. But that's the consistency that we want. We want it to go from that orange peel texture that I was talking about earlier to more that smooth pearl consistency. Okay, that's going to tell you that your product is ready to set down at the cuticle. And by angling that finger downward, you're going to be able to press out that cuticle area with your brush nice and tight. Okay, let me actually show you guys this on the nail now. So, I'm going to pick up my pearl and I'm going to show you one 2 3 4 5. I'm going to set that pearl right at my cuticle area.

[00:27:24]Now, I'm just gonna just for kind of demonstration purposes, I want you guys to see what's happening. Before I even start to press or anything on that nail, you can see that my product is going to start to flow down the length of the nail. That's exactly what we want. What we don't want, I'm going to show you guys this again, is we don't want this flowing out of control. So, if I were to just pick up my pearl and instead of waiting those four to 5 seconds, if I set that on there, you can see how fast that product is flowing. And if your room especially is a little cooler, it's going to flow way too fast. So, you have to maintain control of your product.

[00:28:07]Okay. So, let me show you this one more time here.

[00:28:12]and we'll actually let this one set up on the nail so that way you guys can see. Okay. So, again, I'm going to pick up my pearl.

[00:28:24]Press and pull. Bounce, bounce, bounce.

[00:28:28]I'm going to wait one, two, three. Yeah, you guys, let me do that one more time just so you guys you can see everything that I'm doing here. Okay. Okay.

[00:28:39]There we go. So again, we're going to tap the back side of my brush. I'm going to press and pull. Bounce, bounce, bounce. I'm going to wait one, two, three, four, five until I have that smooth pearl look. I'm going to set that at my cuticle area. I'm going to press out that cuticle area. This is why I angle my finger downward. Actually, you guys, you know what? I'm going to wipe this one off. This one I feel like was a little on the dry side. So, I feel like it's not flowing at all. Okay. Now, I'm gonna tell you guys, I'm gonna be 100% straightforward honest with you. It has gotten Let me see. My temperature in my room is about 80°. So, if your room temperature is warm, if it's warmer than 75°, it is going to set up faster. So, you may have to adjust a little bit and you may not want to let it um set for the 4 seconds. You may want to go 3 seconds. So, we're going to press and pull. Bounce, bounce, bounce. One, two, 3. Perfect. Now, I'm going to set that down. I'm going to press, press, press all the way around my cuticle area, allowing that product to just start to flow down the length of the nail. Once it stops moving, I'm going to wipe out my brush. I'm going to lift up. I'm going to pivot my brush on the side. And I'm going to blend the edge. Pivot my brush on the other side. Blend the edge.

[00:30:10]And then I'm going to use just a little bit of pressure on my brush here because again, my room is a little warmer today.

[00:30:17]And then I'm just going to blend that out towards the end. I'm going to just gently blend all the way through. Now you can see we got a little bit more product in that stress area. So I'm going to just use a little bit of pressure right through that stress area, pulling that down the length of the nail. Okay. Now remember that you're always going to do some filing at the end. So don't worry too much if you don't have a perfect application. You can always file it out as long as you have the proper structure in there.

[00:30:50]Okay. I'm going to do another nail here for you guys and then we'll get into sculpting. So, I just want to go through this one. I'm going to go through this one a little bit quicker so that you can see the actual flow of how I work rather than as I as I teach you guys. A lot of times I do kind of stop a little bit more and slow down. So, this way you guys can kind of see everything. But this one, I'm going to go ahead and I'm just going to pick it up. I'm going to set it onto the nail and just go right through the process. Although, somebody's asking, "What if product gets under the nail?" If you do get product under the nail, I would recommend using a cuticle pusher or something like that to clean that up. But if you have control of how your product is flowing, how it's moving, you shouldn't have a lot of product getting up underneath that nail. Okay? So, just keeping an eye on your consistency is definitely going to help with that. And adjusting if you need a large pearl or a small pearl is also going to help with that. Okay. But great question, you guys. I love to hear your questions. Okay. All right. So, let's go ahead and we're going to pick up our pearl. I'm going to wait. One, two, three. I'm going to set that right onto my nail. I'm going to press press.

[00:32:05]I pivot my brush on the side. Tuck all the way up around that cuticle area.

[00:32:10]Kind of tucking in a little bit on those sides. I'm going to just help my product kind of flow a little bit more down the length of the nail. Wipe out my brush.

[00:32:19]lift up my brush. I'm going to pivot that nail or pivot my brush on those sides and just start to blend that product down the length of the nail. So again, you can see that I do have the correct amount of product on here. Now, if I had a longer nail, which I'm going to show you guys how to sculpt out some extensions, um I'm going to show you on our next couple of nails how to add product if you need to. But on our just our overlay here, I really didn't need to add any more. And I do have that nice arch to my nail. Okay. So, nice and thin and tapered at that cuticle area. A little bit thicker right through our stress area. And then nice and thin and tapered at that free edge. So, somebody's um commenting in the in the chat there says, "My cuticle never gets smooth." Guys, let me I'm going to pop one more nail in here. Now, it is really important to get your cuticle application nice and thin and tapered so that you don't have to do a lot of filing on it because if you overfile that cuticle area, that actually is where a lot of lifting can come into play. So, if you're struggling with your cuticle area, I'm going to come in really, really closely here, okay?

[00:33:33]Because I want you guys to see this. I want you to notice the angle of my brush when I press out my cuticle area. Okay?

[00:33:39]I'm showing you guys this from the side.

[00:33:41]I'm using more of that point of my brush. I'm not keeping my brush flat like this. If your brush is flat here, you're not going to get a thin and tapered cuticle area. Okay. Now, the other thing that I want you guys to see is when I do put that product on, I start in the center and I press press.

[00:34:01]When I get to the corner here, I pivot my brush. So, I actually turn my brush on the side. So that way we have our brush flat. Flat pivot. Use the edge of your brush. That way you're going to be able to tuck in onto that cuticle area and get that corner really nice and tight and thin. Okay. So, let me show you guys this with the actual acrylic again.

[00:34:23]All right. So, I've got my pearl. I'm going to wait one 2 3 4. Again, I'm going to angle that finger down. Set my pearl down. Maybe I'll just wipe out a little bit of that. Press. Press, pivot my brush on the side. Tuck in on that side. Press, press, pivot my brush to that other side. Okay, you guys. Right now, I'm not going to worry about the rest of this um this application, but I wanted you guys to see that. Press, press, pivot, press, press, pivot. So, now you can see from that side that cuticle area is going to be nice and thin. You're not going to have a whole lot of filing to do. It's going to just go right flush down to that cuticle area. Okay? But keep in mind, you do want to leave just the tiny little bit of space between your cuticle and your product. So, if you get product up on that cuticle or if you're trying to push product at the cuticle, let me show you guys one more thing that I see a lot of especially beginners try to do is they try to push their product up to the cuticle and that's where they have challenges with it getting maybe a little too thick by the cuticle. So, if they set it down, they try to push the product up there. They push product. And again, do you see what happens is you're going to get that little lip right in the back. you're going to get that little ledge. So, in order to get rid of that ledge, we're not going to push product at the cuticle. We're going to press right around the cuticle. Okay, let me show you guys that one more time here.

[00:36:00]So, again, we're going to wait one, two, three, maybe four seconds. The finger is angled down. I start with my product just a little ways away from that cuticle. I don't start with it right on it because by pressing and using the point of my brush, I'm going to just taper that right into that cuticle area.

[00:36:19]Press, press, and tapering it in. Pivot my brush on those sides. So now you can see again, nice and thin, nice and tight right at that cuticle. I am going to do a little bit of filing through the nail.

[00:36:33]So you will thin that out just a little bit, but I don't have that big ridge in the back cuticle area. Okay, so I think that was Melody. I hope that helps you.

[00:36:43]I hope that helps answer your questions and I hope that helps to give you a little bit better understanding on how to get your cuticle um a little bit thinner. But again, angle that finger downward, keeping your brush at an angle here so that you're putting pressure with your brush all the way around that cuticle area, tapering all the way in.

[00:37:02]Let me show you guys again from this view here. So press, press, pivot your brush. So, pivot that brush on the side so that you're going to get that nice tight corner right up in there. Okay.

[00:37:14]Okay. Let's go ahead and move on to our sculptured nails. So, if you're done doing overlays, you guys, I'm going to dust this one off. I got a little bit of extra powder on there. So, if you are going to be building out extensions and you're going to be using forms to build those out, you want to make sure that you are getting your form on there properly. And if you have uh maybe some challenging nails, we do have some other great videos on how to customize your forms and things like that. But for today, we're just going to do a basic form application. Okay. So, we're going to get our form right up underneath that nail. So, make sure if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and join our community so that you can get all of this extra education and you can check out the rest of our um all of our videos because we have over 3,500 videos here for you. So, check those out. Make sure to subscribe. Now, we've got our form on the nail. We're going to be building the product out onto the form.

[00:38:16]I do want to show you something. When we're working on a form, the form is going to be a lot more slick than a natural nail. So, if we were to just pick up our pearl and we were to set that right onto our form, you're going to notice that product is going to flow really, really fast. Okay? You're probably going to feel like you have to chase it. You're probably going to be pushing it around a lot. And do you see what happened? I just kind of gked up my brush. Has anybody else had this happen?

[00:38:45]You guys let me know in the chat. Um, I don't want to say throw a thumbs up or anything in the chat because nobody wants to thumbs up a a a junct or a dirty brush here. But let me know in the chat if you've kind of gked up your brush because it got stuck all in the acrylic. What is happening here is I'm chasing my product as it's setting up and I don't want to have to chase it.

[00:39:08]So, when we're working on our form, what we're going to do is we're going to drain out some extra liquid. Now, when we were working by our cuticle area, what we were doing was just waiting for that product to get to that pearl look.

[00:39:23]What we're going to do when we work on the form is we're going to just we're going to take out that extra liquid.

[00:39:29]Okay? So, we're not even going to let it get to that flowing kind of phase. Okay?

[00:39:34]So, we're going to press and pull.

[00:39:36]Bounce, bounce, bounce. I'm going to just allow that to absorb all of the powder that's on there. And then I'm going to drain that on my table towel.

[00:39:46]Okay, again, we're going to count. So, let me do this one more time. Let me get a nice clean table towel.

[00:39:52]Actually, I'm going to grab a few more here.

[00:39:56]There we go. Okay, so when we're working on the form, we're going to pick up our pearl. Press and bounce, bounce, bounce.

[00:40:04]I'm going to make sure that my powder has absorbed and then I'm going to drain that pearl. 1 2 3 4. What this is going to do is it's actually going to bring that pearl a little bit more to a clayike form. So when I set that onto my form, you can see it's going to soften just a little bit, but it's not running out of control. Now I actually have complete control and I can move my product where I need to without it running all over the place and it's not gunking up my brush. Okay. So, if you've had issues or had challenges with your product getting stuck in your brush, chances are you're working with it too wet and you're not letting that product do the work for you. Okay. So, when we work on our form, we're going to drain out that extra liquid. Bring our product more to clayike form and we're going to be able to sculpt in our extension. So, let's pick up our pearl here. We're going to press and pull. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Allow the powder to absorb. I'm going to drain one, two, three, four.

[00:41:10]Now you guys, I want you to see this.

[00:41:11]I'm gonna come in really, really closely here. You can see that that pearl almost starts to look, especially right around the edge here, it almost starts to look like a matte finish. Okay? And that's exactly what we're going for. Now, we don't want to drain out all of the liquid till it gets completely matte, but we don't want it quite that shiny, really wet look, okay? We want just a little bit of a a matte. I'm going to say a matte sheen. And that's going to be your proper consistency for working on your form. Okay. So, we're going to allow the powder to absorb. Drain. One.

[00:41:46]Two. All you guys. Sorry, I'm off camera here. Let me come back out. There we go.

[00:41:51]All right. We're going to press and pull. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce. Allow my powder to absorb. Drain. One 2 3 4. I'm going to set that right up to that free edge. I'm going to press that pearl down. I'm going to wipe out my brush.

[00:42:09]Again, you can see my product isn't moving. But now I can come back in with the flat part of my brush and I'm going to be able to press that product out from side to side. Okay. Now, I am going to take this one off because there's something else that I want to show you guys and I want to be able to redo this again for you. So, when you set your pearl onto the nail, you're setting that down with the flat part of your brush.

[00:42:33]You're putting pressure with the flat part of your brush. Okay? I'm going to clean out my brush, wipe that out. Then, once I've pressed my product out from side to side, now I'm going to use the edge of my brush. So, again, here we were using the flat part of the brush.

[00:42:51]Now, I'm actually going to use the edge here. So, I'm going to use the edge to tuck in on the sides. Tuck in on the sides. And notice that I'm not turning my brush on the edge here. Okay. There's a big difference between turning your brush versus using the edge on the side.

[00:43:11]By using the edge, you're going to get nice straight sidewalls. If you turn your brush on the side here, what's going to happen is you're going to squish your product. Okay, let me show you exactly what I mean. Oh, you guys, I need to add a little bit more monomer, but I've actually used up most of my monomer here. So, when I add clean, fresh monomer, I want to make sure that I am soaking up that old monomer that may have a little bit of residue in it.

[00:43:36]So, always make sure when you need to get new monomer. Don't just add the new monomer to your old monomer. Always add clean, fresh monomer so that you're going to get good consistency every time. Okay. And just like I did at the very beginning, I'm gonna pour my touch my brush right to the top of my bottle.

[00:43:55]We're gonna pour that straight down into the daffin dish. And then we've got our product in there without dribbling down the edge of my bottle.

[00:44:06]Okay. So, let's go back to our free edge here and we're going to press and pull.

[00:44:16]Bounce, bounce, bounce. Allow that powder to absorb. I'm going to drain.

[00:44:20]One, two, three, four. I'm going to set that right at my free edge. Press that down. Wipe out my brush. I'm going to use the flat part of my brush to press out from side to side. And then I'm going to use the edge of my brush to tuck in. I'm going to press that product up into the corner. Use the edge of my brush to tuck in. Press that product all the way across the top. Same thing on the other side. Press or push in. Tuck that product up into the corner. Push in. Up into the corner. Then I'm going to come all the way back across. And now I'm going to just smooth that product out. Again, if you need to come back in and tuck in on those sides, clean up those edges. Clean up those lower arches. Straighten out those edges.

[00:45:12]Making sure that everything is nice and thick or not the same thickness. Sorry, not you guys. Not nice and thick, but the same thickness all the way through from side to side. And that's the reason that we start on the center. Press everything out even from side to side and then tuck in. Okay, guys. I'm going to show you our free edge on this next one here as well. So, let me get a form on that one. And I keep sticking this one into my jar of powder. So, let me clean that one off real quick again.

[00:45:46]All right. So, same thing. We're going to grab another form here. We're going to put our form on the nail. I'm going to take that little center tab out.

[00:45:54]Stick that on the back to give my form a little bit more durability. I'm going to pinch my two little tabs together nice and even.

[00:46:03]And we'll get this form right up underneath that free edge. And again, you guys make sure if you haven't already, hit that subscribe button and this way you've got access to all kinds of different educational videos here and lots of learning. Um, somebody's asking, "Do you have a tutorial on applying forms?" Absolutely. Here on our channel, I know we've got some amazing videos on how to um properly fit and customize your forms. So definitely subscribe to the channel and check out the rest of those videos because we have over 3,500 different videos here of free education for you. So subscribe to the channel and you can have access to all of that.

[00:46:45]Okay. All right. So one more time, we're going to pick up our pearl. I'm going to let that powder absorb. I'm going to drain one, two, three, four. We're going to set that pearl down right in the center. I'm going to wipe out my brush.

[00:47:01]I'm going to start in the center. I'm going to press that product from side to side to make sure it's nice and even.

[00:47:07]And then we'll come in from the edge.

[00:47:10]I'm going to tuck in on the side. Walk that product up into the corner. Now, you guys, I want you to notice something that as I'm working here, I'm pressing.

[00:47:19]I'm not squishing. I'm not sliding product. Okay? Do you see how squished and how messy that gets? If you slide product or if you try to slide the product up the side, you're not going to get that proper application. Okay, you guys, I know that looks all crazy, but I see a lot of people try to do that. They try to slide their product. So, what we're doing instead is we're pressing.

[00:47:44]Okay, so let me grab another pearl here.

[00:47:46]I'm going to drain one, two, three, four. We're going to set that down.

[00:47:54]Whoops, you guys. cuz that one was a I drained out just a little bit too much liquid off of that one. So, that one was a little bit too dry.

[00:48:02]So, let's go ahead and pick up one more.

[00:48:06]We're going to do the same thing. We're going to drain one, two, maybe three.

[00:48:12]We're going to set that right down in the center. I'm going to wipe out my brush. I'm going to press that product even from side to side. Tuck in with the edge of my brush. Walk up into the corner. Step, step, tuck in. Step, step, step up into the corner. Tuck in on the corner. We're going to come back across.

[00:48:34]Press, press, press. So it's nice and even all the way across. Use the edge of my brush. Go straight in. Press, press, press up into the corner. Straight in.

[00:48:46]Straightening out that lower arch. Now you can see there's a little bit more bulk on this side and not so much bulk on the other side. We're going to press that bulk over to the other side so that everything is nice and even. Again, clean up those edges.

[00:49:03]Straighten that out. Tuck in on those sides. Press that bulk across the nail.

[00:49:09]And again, I'm pressing. I'm not sliding. Okay? Big difference between pressing and sliding. Okay? So once you've got that, we're just going to go through and smooth all the way through that. Okay.

[00:49:23]Now, once we have our free edge done, we're going to go back to that application that we did over the overlay. Okay. You're going to do the same exact application. Well, with a couple of little tweaks on it, but we're going to angle that finger downward.

[00:49:38]We're going to pick up our pearl, and we're going to wait about 4 seconds.

[00:49:41]Okay? We're going to bring that pearl to a little bit more of a clay or not you guys, sorry, not a clay-like form, but it's going to go from that orange peel texture to that um to that more pearl look. Okay, so let me show you guys one more time here.

[00:49:57]We're going to pick up our pearl and we're going to wait one 2 3 4 until it just melts out. We're going to angle the finger downward. Going to set that pearl down. Press. Press. pivot my brush into the corner. Press, press, pivot into the corner. Just going to kind of tuck along those edges as needed. I'm going to help my product just flow a little bit more.

[00:50:22]Now, I'm going to wipe out my brush. I'm going to lift up. I'm going to pivot my brush on the side. I'm going to blend through that side. Blend through that side. Same thing on the other side.

[00:50:32]Pivot my brush. Blend through that side.

[00:50:35]Now, I'm going to use a little bit of pressure because my product is starting to set up, but I'm just going to blend out that edge. Now, when we were doing our overlay, all we needed was that much length. Okay, so that's all we needed to add with our extension. You're going to be seeing there's a little bit of a low area right here. We need to build that up. So, to build that structure up through there, we're going to pick up one more pearl. And this is going to be a combination of the um the clayike consistency that we used on the free edge and that more wet consistency that we used at the cuticle area. So to get that, we're going to pick up our pearl and I'm just going to drain one, two. So just a quick drain. I'm not draining it all the way like I did with my free edge. I'm just going to do a quick drain. So one more time, we're going to pick up our pearl. One, two. I'm going to turn my brush around. I'm going to set that pearl down in the low spot. And I'm going to blend that back. Pivot my brush on the side. Blend it back. And what this is going to do, pivot my brush on the side. This is going to blend that product right up into the stress area.

[00:51:46]Now I turn my brush around and I can pull that product all the way down the length of the nail, pressing. And now I'm going to just blend all the way through. Okay guys, we've got one more nail to finish up here.

[00:52:01]So, we're going to do that same application. We're going to pick up our pearl. We're going to allow it to just start to kind of set up a little bit.

[00:52:08]One, two, three, four. We're going to angle the finger down. I'm going to set that pearl down. I'm going to press, press, pivot my brush at the corners.

[00:52:18]Press, press, pivot my brush at the corner. Just going to make sure that's not flowing off the side. And I'm going to wipe out my brush. Pivot my brush on the side. Blend out that edge. Blend out that edge. And we're going to blend out the edge of that first pearl. Now, if you guys don't get a perfect blend on it, that's okay. We just don't want to have a big ledge to blend our next pearl into. Okay.

[00:52:47]All right. Next one here, we're going to pick up.

[00:52:52]And this one we're going to just drain.

[00:52:54]One, two. Turn my brush back around.

[00:52:57]Blend back up to that stress area. Pivot my brush on the sides.

[00:53:02]Blending back. Wipe out my brush. And I'm just going to blend this one out.

[00:53:07]Now, if I needed to press the product out just a little bit more, I could use a little more pressure right through here. And then just blend that product out. I think I'm going to turn my brush around. I'm going to blend this one back just a little bit more because I want to taper that a little bit more at my free edge. And by blending back, I'm going to pull that product more towards that stress area and a little bit more thin at that free edge. Okay?

[00:53:35]And that is how we're going to do our overlays. Now, you guys, we're not going to go through and file and finish these nails, but again, if you want to check out more of our education here on our YouTube channel, make sure to subscribe.

[00:53:48]Hit that subscribe button for us. If you're learning a lot today, if you enjoyed our lesson today, make sure to subscribe. And I think our moderators might be able to put a link in there for you guys because we do have we have lots of other social media that you can join us on. But right now, we also have a live stream going on our whatnot channel. So, if you guys want to get some great deals on our whatnot channel, make sure to jump over there. And again, moderators, I'm not sure if they can if you guys can get that link into the chat or not, but join us on whatnot for some great deals. Otherwise, everything that I've used here today in our demo is at our website, youngnails.com.

[00:54:29]So, make sure to join us on all of our different social media, and make sure to subscribe to our channel here. Set your notifications because we do go live at about twice a week here with demos and education. So, make sure to set your notifications. Um, Miss T is asking, "Is this actually live or a recording?"

[00:54:49]Right now, you are watching it live, but it is recorded and it will be posted here on our YouTube channel a little bit later. So, just depends on when you're watching. But, Miss T, it this is actually live right now as you are listening. So, thank you guys all for joining us. I hope you guys enjoyed our lesson today and I hope to see you guys back at our next live stream. Thanks.