Applying and Blending Tips

After you PREP the nail you are ready to either apply tips or apply sculpting forms. Lets discuss tips.

Not all tips are created equal and you cannot use one style of tips on every person. Look at your client's natural c-curve to determine which tip to use. If you have someone with a flat nail you will NOT be able to use a tip with a high arch and vice versa. The tip should fit easily from
lateral wall to lateral wall of the natural nail and should encase the natural nail free edge exactly. Shape the natural nail to fit into the well of the tip.

Next you want to pre-tailor the tip and thin the well. There is absolutely no reason for the tip to cover more than 1/3 of the nail with a tip - remember the tip is the weak link in a nail enhancement so the less you have attached, the better. And the more filing you do before you apply it means the less you have to do when its attached to your client and the less chance you have for damage. You can see the pre-tailoring on the video I reference below.

Apply the tip with your choice of adhesive. (I will be writing a post at some point about adhesives and will add the link to the comments of this post.) There are many ways to apply tips but I prefer to apply the adhesive to the tip well and then but it up to the natural nail and "rock" it down to the nail plate.

Once the nail adhesive is dry, clip the nail to the desired length, file to shape (we will discuss shapes in a different post) and then it is time to blend the nail tip. The only tip you do not need to blend is a colored or white french tip but for a natural tip you want to get rid of that line. I also blend clear tips but that's a personal preference because I feel like you can see the shiny line of the well. Once again there are many opinions out there about blending/not blending but #1 it looks more natural (yes this is my opinion but I've never heard anyone disagree!) and #2 it thins the plastic and gives you more room for the actual enhancement product which is the strength of your service.

Blending: This is a hard one to describe but there are many videos out there that show blending (including the one below) - but the main thing to remember is that you want to avoid damaging the natural nail. You should do all your blending on the TIP, not on the natural nail itself and as you get more and more blended, switch to a finer file just in case you hit the natural nail. Yes, once again, if you are *properly trained* and use the correct bits you can do this with an electric file

I know a lot of people are enamored with well-less tips but what they do not realize is that tips with wells are engineered to encase the natural free edge to help prevent tip separation If you look very closely at the underside of a tip well you will see that the ridge is slightly angled inward to hold the natural free edge. Cool, huh?

You can see a great demo by FingerNailFixer below