Confused about acetone, Mr Geek!

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Myriad

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Dear Samuel,

With reference to your article on removing Nails in the March issue of NAILS;

I’m confused! You say in the article that soaking off extensions in pure acetone can be one of the most damaging acts that a technician can inflict on the natural nail.

Once their natural nail has grown out underneath, 90% of the customers in our Salon have soak off rebalance/backfills for their Pink & Whites (or China Whites – what do you call yours?!) in acetone approx every 6 weeks, as we believe this to be the least traumatic and damaging method of doing things (no over-filing and hence thinning of the natural nail).

The reason for my confusion is that Doug Schoon in his book Chemistry Simplified (which I have studied carefully) says:

“Acetone can absorb some water from the natural nail plate but so will the non-acetone solvents. However, this is not an important issue. Normal moisture levels are restored quickly. This temporary drying causes no damage to the nail plate. In fact pure acetone will clean the nail plate and improve product adhesion”.

In the 4 years which I have been using acetone in this way, I have never had a problem. In fact, our customers love the style, colours and slim shape achieved by sculpting acrylic over their natural nails and we don’t have problems with lifting or mould.

What’s right? To soak or not to soak (in acetone), that is the question!

Regards



Maria Dunn
 
I edited your post and stuck the email in it you just sent as It wigged out when you submitted (the WYSIWYG editor doesnt like you to paste into it). I hope that is what you meant to post ;)

Anyhoo.... here is my reply I sent to you....

Hi there,

Acetone in dehydrators and prep products are fine as the time spent on the nail is very low. However, when it comes to a soak, they are usually submerged for an average of 30 minutes at a time. This type of saturation dries out and damages the keratin in the natural nail plate (think of soaking your hair in acetone for even 1/3rd of the time every 6 weeks). The problem is further compounded by the dehydration effects upon the skin (i.e. more frequent onycholysis from dehydrating the bed epithelium).
Whilst the occasional soak is not going to mean much to the overall health of the nail (especially if dissolvent are used and oils after the soak are applied), many dermatologists feel doing so regularly can damage the plate (especially if any scraping methods or tools are used).

Personally, I feel that soaking every 6 weeks isn’t the best thing for the health of the nail, but then again... there is a heck of a lot worse that you could be doing ;)
 
hi

With the products that we use (biosculpture) we have been trained to remove the product monthly for natural overlays, we use thier product "soak off", after removing the product we are told to then soak the nails in water for a few minutes and then give a mini oil mani and reapply the product if required. To get to the point are we doing are clients a disservice in following this advice?? 50% of them wear colour the other 50% french. They dont seem to like it when we infill them. What would your advice be ps: the colours look a pigs ear if you try and infill them!
 
Hi Tracy,

I don't use Biosculpture but I imagine you are being asked to soak off every month because with a solid colour you cannot see the health of the nail underneath so you dont know what is there. Is it possible the product is ageing and having a slight colour change and that is the reason the infills don't look the same? Cynical people may see it as a company's way of selling more product to you by insisting you soak it off every month LOL - but hey we are not cynical.

I personally am not a fan of full nail coloured gels or acrylics but that is just me - there are so many fabulous enamel colours I cannot see the point of permanent colour.

Out of interest - what do you do with your pink and white customers - rebalance or soak off and redo?

I do not see you have any choice in these instances but to soak in acetone based remover but I dont understand the soaking in water then oil - surely a wash to the hands would be enough before an oil rich moisturising manicure.

Sorry if I have put a negative slant on this.
 
hi fiona

no you havent at all, i would never soak someones nails in water if i was putting another brand or system on ie L+P or my LCN gell, i always follow the manufacturers instuctions. As for the rebalance of p+w they all prefer to have them removed unless we have tipped them, which is only in the case of a breakage. The gel is quite "rubbery" as its a soft gel and with the colours i can see a slight variation in colour and it dosent look the best it can, i am afraid i am a perfectionist and i have made my staff that way too......................
What concerns me is the regular soaking off of the gel, a very large percentage of our clients have biosculpture and i am not knocking the product at all its very good and the clients love it.
We use thier brand of remover called "soak off" its not cheap but it does remove them within 15-20 mins.
I removed my L+P set last night using foil and pads with my cnd remover and they are fine (ps i was bored with them nothing wrong with them) .
 
sammy ....quik question. what about soaking in foils with paraffin? it only takes about 15 or 20 minutes?

guru
 
Little Angel said:
We use thier brand of remover called "soak off" its not cheap but it does remove them within 15-20 mins. .


I think you need to know what the actual ingredients in "soak-off" are. I beleive it is basically acetone but then it will describe the ingredients on the bottle, won't it?
 
cndguru said:
sammy ....quik question. what about soaking in foils with paraffin? it only takes about 15 or 20 minutes?

guru
Hi, so how is this done? I soak of using pads with acetone and then foiled, however never heard of the above, please tell me more sounds interesting.

Grace x
 
Try acetone puff and foil wrap and then put paraffin in bag then place hand in bag and work the paraffin in place wrap with towel or mitts...
 
Havent heard of using paraffin with the foils, but I think it sounds like a superb idea guys.
 
i used to rely heavily on acetone based product removers to remove anything i didn't like the look of!
after listening to people like doug schoon, i re-asessed that technique.
i now thin down the product with my abrasive to remove anything i want to remove( center-pocket lift etc).
if there has been an injury to the nail & this method might cause pain or more damage then i resort to soaking.
it took a few months for me to notice the difference in my clients nails due to reduced amounts of soaking.
if curling is present on the free edge or the lateral side wall, & u soak off the product, 9 out of 10 times, the nail plate curls even more making it difficult to apply new product without the free edge wanting to pull away even more next time!
the nails are softened temporarily while in soaking, but dry out very quickly when removed.
they r definatly much more brittle, & some of the nail plates that r naturally dry anyway, sometimes end up with white patches of completly dried out nail plate layer on them.
without dought sometimes soaking off product is necessary, but i think we sometimes have to look at why we r doing something, & check to see if another method would not b more beneficial.
liza xx
 
Just a quick note here group I use vaseline around the finger area minus the nailbed before I apply my acetone swabs and foil its just something my mother passed on...tends to relieve some of the drying effects of the acetone on the skin....gomen imho...
 
BKnOki said:
Just a quick note here group I use vaseline around the finger area minus the nailbed before I apply my acetone swabs and foil its just something my mother passed on...tends to relieve some of the drying effects of the acetone on the skin....gomen imho...

Sawsdee ka

I use cutical oil i massage the oil all around the cutical and over the nail when i soak off i think is very good and helps the soak off .

Mui from Thailand
 
sorry i didnt respond sooner but, its been busy at the salon.....anyway ......
using paraffin provides heat to the acetone(which makes it work faster).using this method makes it easy to give ur client a soak off and a moisturizing treatment at the same time......kinda kill 2 birds w/ 1 stone. after filling the enhancement to remove the shine , i apply moisturizer to the hand and cuticle area , then apply the acetone soaked cotton balls to the enhancement and wrap with foil.after alll this is done i get a scoop of paraffin and put it in a plastic bag, and dip the tips of the foil in the paraffin .after all that i put the hands in heated mitts and there u go.doing this cuts the soak off time for me to 15 or 20 minutes. thanx!
guru
 
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