Prevent Lifting by Prepping

What is lifting?  

Lifting is where the product placed onto the nail comes away from the natural nail, it often looks like lighter patches around the free edge, side walls, cuticle area. 

Lifting is one of the biggest factors that can lead to your nail colour not lasting as long as they should, the client easily blames the gel polish or the system applied but this is not always the case most of the time.  

Lifting can be caused by several things, but the main factor is poor prep work. 

You can prevent lifting by prepping. And prepping well.  

Prep Well

Poor prep will result in lifting.  Here are some simple pointers to ensure your prep is on point: 

• Ensure that you are etching the whole natural nail paying extra attention to the free edge, side walls and cuticle area. If you have missed a little bit of the nail, the gel will not adhere to the nail as strong as it should be.  
• If you get lifting around the free edge of the nail you need to make sure you are capping each layer of base, builder and topcoat, this seals in the natural nail and creates a seamless finish which will not be able to be lifted.  
• If your client has oily nails this will contribute to lifting, make sure that you are dehydrating the nail using Cuccio Prep Step 1 and then giving the nails a good cover of Cuccio Fuse Step 2, pay extra attention to the side walls, free edge and cuticle area.  
• When you are doing an infill you need to make sure that you remove any lifting patches because if you infill over them you could be trapping moisture into the lift, this will result in bacteria building up in that little pocket, this will cause the nail to discolour and potentially cause infections.