Sean McWard

Hi, I'm Alisha Rimando and welcome to Back to Basics. In this episode I want to talk to you about extending the nail plate. Now, a lot of clients are going to come in and show you pictures of these really long nail plates and they're going to be like, 'That's what I want'. And sometimes it's really hard to do that because they have a little, tiny, short nail bed. Especially if you're trying to do French or if you're trying to do a color fade, being able to extend that nail bed is great, but you don't want to extend it from the cuticle all the way to the free edge because then we just have Barbie fingers, little fake fingernails, and we want it to look beautiful and natural. That's why cover pink powders were made. So let me take you down to the salon and show you how to create a beautiful extended nail that looks so natural it's going to look just like your client's original nail. So the nails have been prepped. And if you want to look at that, you can go to our Back to Basics, one of our very first episodes and look up nail prep. And then there's also another Back to Basics episode on putting on a nail form. So, what I'm going to do is go ahead and start, and of course this also has our nail prep and our primer on there. So I'm going to start with trying to extend the nail plate. What you want to do is dip your brush all the way in, wipe all the way out, because we don't want a lot of product and we also want to pick up our most opaque color, kind of a smaller bead, and I want to let that soak up that monomer to where we get like a really pretty, round bead. And then I want to dry, dry, dry. So we want it to be really dry. So we're going to let out as much liquid as we can, because the more liquid you take out of it, the more it's going to work like a concealer and we want to conceal the very edge of her nail plate. And that little free edge that was showing there, we want to cover that up. So I want to put that down. I want to make sure that my brush stays, moist, but not wet. And so I want to extend her nail bed out, and if you notice where I placed it, right there. Halfway on the form and halfway on her nail and then I'm just going to blend out that very edge of that bead. And that blends that into her natural nail. So it looks very natural, and then I don't want to smash that bead flat, because if we smash it flat then you're going to be able to see through it and we don't want to see through it. So now I'm going to take my brush at an angle and you can see if I turn, that the brush is at an angle and we're keeping the part where we're trying to conceal that smile line area, we're going to keep that high and we're going to press this bead low and blend it right into her natural nail. I want to smash down the very edges of this onto the form, so that it goes back down to that thinner consistency. So I'm going to use the side of my brush to create that smile line look, and you'll notice I didn't cover all of this smile line. I'm just going down the edge of it. Remember to keep that area a little bit thick. So you can keep that opaqueness in there. Then just stretch out the edge. Keep stretching it until you can get the shape. So you can see already that we've got really good coverage here. Remember if you can see it now, you can see it later. So it's really important to make sure you're getting it as opaque as you can and if it's not opaque enough, then you need to go back, take that off and start again. So now when you turn the nail to the side, you can see there's a little bit of nail showing right there and a little bit here, but we don't want to get it too thick in these corners, because let's just say if you were going to do a French, you'd be putting white up there too. So you want to be careful how much bulk you put in the sides, because all nails you want thin at the back and around the cuticle lines, then on the sides and then at the tip and your thickest point in the center, so you always want to remember that. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to try to give a little bit of coverage here, but I also want to blend back, so it blends into the natural nail because we don't want to take that color all the way back to the cuticle line, unless you absolutely have to because then it just looks fake and I don't want it to be fake. So I'm going to take our second color that looks a little bit more opaque. But it has some translucency to it. So I want to take that and I'm going to dry that out so we can get the coverage that we want. I'm goning to put a little bit here on this side and a little bit here on this side. Then I'm just going to tap those into place. Go ahead and blend that bead back onto that nail and blend it at the edge and then go ahead and pack it right into the corner here. Blend out the back of the bead into the nail plate. Add a little bit more, so I can blend that out. A little bit dry. Always keep everything that's on the nail bed blended. So now we have a nice pretty extension. You can still see that line of demarcation there. So I want to take a little bit of that middle color that has that little bit of coverage and a little bit of low-pickness and instead of drying it out at all, I want to put it straight onto the nail and just tap a little bit so that that those 2 colors blend together nicely and then also so that, on the nail plate, it blends right into that natural nail color. Remember the rule is, if you can see it now, you'll see it later. So if you can see that there's a line of demarcation you're going to see it later. But if you look at that, it's really hard to tell. So if you need to, just take a couple of little grains to do any blending that you need to blend and remember too, that sometimes like a little hole in the product application, that'll shine light. So you want to make sure that everything's nice and smooth too. If I look at it from the side, I can see my smile line's not completely straight right there. So I'm going to go in and add a little bit of this opaque one. I'm going to dry, dry, dry it out and stick it right in that little spot where I need that little tiny hole to be filled, so I can get that perfect smile line. Now, sometimes you'll be doing something, wanting to extend the nail bed, and you don't have to worry about that perfect smile line, but with this nail I do want that smile line to be nice and pretty. I'm going to extend her nail with a sheer color. When you bring in colors like this, now we're talking about glitter, and if we're trying to do a full set, we may not want glitter in our monomer and in our brush. So one little trick that we can do, is take these 2 pieces away, bring in a dappen dish that's only used for glitter and a brush that I only use for glitter and go ahead and build our glitter free edge. Wait for the monomer to set in. Because these are big pieces of glitter, I like to place them, where I like to place them. So I like to keep this thin so that I can put my glitter where I want to put it in my design. Remember to just follow the lines. I want to spread these out so they're not stacked on top of each other. That way I can get a little bit more of a consistent look. I'm going make this nail a long oval. So I'm going to follow those oval lines on the form. So now that I have all my glitter evened out into my free edge the way I want it to, I'm going to go ahead and add a little bit of this gold. I think it's pretty. Going to add a little bit of that right around the free edge area and blend that down. Now when you look at the nail from the side, you can see that we go thin in the back and then there's a dip down and then we have this part. What I want to do is add my clear or my sheer pink to the edge of this, to fill in all the space and really build the structure, especially when you're doing glitter nails, sometimes there's a lot more glitter than there is acrylic powder. So you want to make sure that you're not building with just a bunch of glitter, you want to build a nail with acrylic powder. So in order to do that, I just use the glitter for what I want it to look like and then I move back to one of my solid colors. So now I'm going to move my sheer pink powder back in, I'm going to come back in with my monomer, that doesn't have glitter in it, and my brush that doesn't have glitter in it, because that's really important when we're trying to get this covered and I'm going to start with the free edge. I'm going to pick up quite a large bead and place it down right over everything to cover it up. I'm just going to slide all the product where it needs to go. I'm going to use my brush, flat, parallel with the nail, when I'm working around the center and then I'm going to use it at a little bit of an angle at the edge, to get it nice and thin towards the edge. In the center we want that little bit of thickness. We need another bead, place it down. Remember anything that you put down on top of that other acrylic, is going to dry really, really fast. So you want to make sure that you're moving quickly so the product doesn't dry. The old product doesn't suck the monomer out of the new product and make the product too dry. And then we're going to go right at the cuticle line, use that little bit of pink to blend a really pretty nail bed. You can look at the nail from this side you can see that our shape, now we could add a little product here. But you also want to remember that when you're working, to not build up your mistakes, a lot of times we'll get the product really thick here and really thick here and then we add more product in the middle. The problem with that, is there's just more to file because it does have to be thin in the back and thin at the tip, so if you've already got the thickness you want or it's a little bit too thick, then just know when you file...so don't build on your mistakes. Now look at it from the side. You can see it's been in the back. We've got that really pretty arch going right up to our apex and then sliding right back down into a nice pretty thin tip. Now I'm going to pinch. Mold this nail into shape. Check how it's working and if the form starts to come off at the bottom then it's ready to be removed and what you want is that form to be nice and sticky, so it's hard to get off. That way it stays in place. I'm going to get a C-curve stick and just remember with your C-curve sticks, start with the one that fits right now. Make sure you have a nice, pretty arch and you're going to press in where it's wide and then you're going to hold it and the heat from your fingers will help to push in that C-curve and lock it into place then we're going to drop down a size on our C-curve stick. Again, wherever it's wide, that's where we're going to hold it in. And then the last one, I'm going to go even smaller, especially since I'm doing an oval nail. Now we're going to go ahead and get this file. Remember to always start with your sides straight and your sidewalls. File your perimeter first. Once you get your perimeter shaped, then you want to go over the top of the nail. Then I'm going to buff the surface. I'm using 2 different grits of buffer. But you also want to make sure, especially if you're going to be just doing top coat, don't buff it all the way down to really, really smooth, keep it in at least a 180-grit on the surface, so that it grabs that polish that gel polish and it makes it stick really well, so you don't get any peeling with your polish. Again let the grit do the job, don't press a lot, just lightly file over, buff over and I'm going to turn, bring it to a 180-grit. Then look at the shape from my client's perspective. And then I'm going to go back and, with a very thin file, I'm going to go right into the sides, so I can make those sides perfect. We finish our filing and go ahead and finish this out with a little bit of gel top coat. I love doing this really fun glitter because you can see through it and it makes it really fun for parties. If you want to, you can even do a coat underneath. And really show that really glassy look. So that was probably a little bit different to what you've seen in other Instagram posts or maybe things that you've learned before, because this is a way that you can do that overlay in the back, to make it look so beautiful and so natural, and doing like that little glitter fade at the end for the extension, it just makes it really fun. But on the next episode I'm going to show you how to create that perfect French and it is really hard, because when the white and that pink start to touch each other, things start to get a little bit tricky. So join me on the next episode where