Etching the Nail

In my post on proper PREP I noted that in prepping the nail, your goal is to get rid of the natural oils that coat the nail NOT to etch or scratch up the nail.  Of course for every nail tech who understands and practices this, there are just as many who insist that you need to take a coarse file (100 grit) and "etch" the nail.  Lets take a look at where this misinformation comes from.

Fred Slack was a dentist in the mid 1950's.  One day he and his brother were trying to fix a severely broken fingernail and inadvertently invented acrylic nail extensions (He eventually created the nail company NSI, which is still in existence today).  All acrylic nails in the industry's infancy were created with dental monomer - which was Methyl-Methacrylate (MMA) (which I will discuss in its own post later).  MMA does not bond very well to the natural nail plate. The only way it can adhere to the nail is through mechanical adhesion, which requires massive amounts of damage to the natural nail plate (through severe ‘etching’). The upper most layers of the plate have to be removed to expose the looser knit center of the plate. This gives the MMA something ‘substantial’ to bond to.  (Of course, once MMA is bonded to the nail it doesn't want to come off, but we can discuss this in depth in a different post.)

By the 1970's, the FDA was receiving numerous complaints about MMA and officially placed MMA on its poisonous and deleterious list of substances and warned professional nail manufacturers against the use of the substance. Nail manufacturers began looking for an alternative and by 1978, Fred Slack (again!) developed the first Ethyl Methacrylcate (EMA) monomer for nails. Right around the same time, Creative Nail Design invented their EMA based Solar Nail liquid.

However, just because they invented a new monomer does not mean that their techniques changed. Technicians were still removing multiple layers of nail with a coarse nail file.  And to top it off, they started using an acid based primer which further micro-etched the nail.  As companies like NSI and CND (and OPI and many others) refined their product and invested many, many dollars into research it became known that there was no need to etch the nail with EMA as it was required for MMA. As a matter of fact, nail companies that spent time and money on R&D have studied and refined their products to the point that minimal buffing is now required to just remove the oily shine from the natural nail in order for their products to stick.  They have also refined primers to be protein based rather than acid based.  

At this point, you should take a look at your product and if they are a company that teaches using a 100 grit file (or, really, anything lower than a 240 grit file. If you use a 180, try a 240, a 180 still scratches quite a bit..), try and figure out why.  Is it because they are not a company that has an in house R&D department?  Is it because they have not refined their product and kept up with modern nail technology since the 1970's and early 1980's? Or are you using a coarse file just because you have been told to, even though the manufacturer doesn't recommend it? The thing is, if you are using a 100 grit file and acid based primer to prep your nail, you are doing the same damage as MMA (without the hazards of MMA, but the nail damage is there.)

"But I don't use a 100 grit file to etch the nail" you say.  Ok, great - awesome in fact.  But can you please stop using the term "etching" then?  If you are not putting grooves int he nail for the purpose of adhesion, you are "removing shine" or "breaking up the oil".  (Again with the proper terminology??  YES!)

And to be fair, I do need to point out that you can still over file the nail even with a fine 240 or 320 grit buffer.  It happens to the best techs, but it is less likely to happen and will cause less damage with a finer file.

I personally use a 320 grit most of the time and do not have lifting so don't let anyone tell you that your nails will lift if you use a fine file (if you are using a good, modern product - and yes I know of products out there who haven't changed there formulas since 1983)! Lifting can be caused by many other reasons and using a 100 grit file and extra primer to "stop lifting" is just masking the real reason you are experiencing lifting.Non-living tissue on the nail and improper mix ratio are usually the culprits.

Resources and References
https://www.facebook.com/doug.schoon/posts/10200844136330015
http://selectnails.com/whatismma.htm
http://www.nailsmag.com/encyclopedia/64257/nsi-nail-systems-international
http://www.nailsmag.com/qa/40820/if-i-dont-etch-the-nails-before-applying-acrylics-do-i-need-to-apply-more-prime