French Shellac - help!

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kbones

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Hi all - I'm having a couple of problems with Shellac French and it's knocked my confidence a fair bit.

The first French Shellac I did on a client only lasted 4 days before the whites started to lift and peel away; she is an auxillary nurse, is quite heavy handed and was using a lot of drying alcoholic gel so we thought this may have been the root cause. She was v happy with the treatment though and reassured me she loved them, just that it's unrealistic for her to have Shellac given her job.

Second French Shellac was on my sister last Thurs, her whites started peeling yesterday - she has followed the aftercare advice to the letter and we can think of nothing she's done that would have exacerbated this. When I did a Shellac colour on her, it lasted 2 weeks with no chips or peeling. She said it hasn't put her off at all just she wondered what had gone wrong.

Third Shellac was on a client (also a colleague) last Friday - I have just spoken to her this morning and she said they are ok but some have started chipping. Having inspected them they have not actually chipped as such, rather the side edge of one of the thumbs has almost worn off (it looks smudged) and there is a bit of wear at the free edge. No signs of the white lifting..yet.

Basically, the fact my sister's Shellac peeled off has really thrown me off balance. I want to remain confident in my abilities but fear I am now going to pre-empt problems before they arise.

I have searched all the threads on here about French, have watched the Fingernail Fixer troubleshooting videos which have been invaluable, and the only thing I can think is that my white was a touch too thick - but it didn't look thick and I made such a conscious effort to make sure it was a very thin layer without being streaky. At some points, I was running out of white by the time I got to the middle of the nail because i had so little on my brush. I also made sure I really shook the bottle beforehand.

After the standard Shellac PEP I did the following:

1 x base coat cure 10 secs
1 x romantique cure 2 mins
1 x cream puff cure 2 mins
1 x zillionaire cure 2 mins
1 x top coat cure 2 mins

Then removed the inhibition layer with Dsperse.

Peeling issues aside, is it normal to get wear on the free edge after only 3 days?

Considering contacting Sweet Squared to see if I can book a 121 with the ambassador I did my training with, to see how my technique can be improved. There's no point in my endlessly practising if I'm doing something fundamentally wrong ;-)
 
Have you tried putting the white on first? I had a few problems at the beginning with French and changed it to white first and no problems since. Hope this works for you.
 
Hi, it could be that the white is actually a tad too thin if you're running out of colour before you even get to the middle of the smile line. Have you tried doing too thin coats instead? Or it could be that the zillionaire is too thick - I know zillionaire is very stingy with glitter in just one coat and I used to try and get a bit more sparkles on so ended up doing a thicker coat. Now I do two thin coats of zillionaire instead. Just a couple of suggestions for you. HTH xxx
 
White first with me too.
 
Thanks for your comments - I may try the white first next time, this was actually how I was taught in training but then I saw so many comments from people saying they put a colour coat on first so they weren't removing any base when tidying up smile lines. What works for some doesn't work for others, I guess.

waffle4 - that's interesting you say that about Zillionaire as I find it a difficult one to get right in terms of consistency and coverage. Perhaps I have layered it on too thick without realising.

I have a feeling my client tomorrow eve will ask for a French so I will try these tips and see how things fare! :rolleyes:
 
Keep us posted and let us know how you get on.
 
Hi, I was taught on my master painter course to apply a pink first as doing the white first means the base is curing for longer than it is meant to :)
 
i had the same issues with peeling and i now do white first and followed with colour and top coat.
good luck

Sent from my GT-I9000 using SalonGeek
 
If you have clients prone to this, in situations where you aren't using an extra coat of colour such as zillionaire and are just doing a standard French, you could try 2 top coats. An*Gel advised me to do this on a client and it worked really well.
I wouldn't do this when you are using an extra shimmer or glitter coat though as really you should only have 4 coats in total of base, colour and top, 5 you can perhaps get away with if the glitter coat is applied very thin. This could also be why you are having some chipping issues, the more coats you have, the more likely they are to chip.
 
I was taught in my shellac training always do pink first?

Completely understand though if you guys are finding better results this way... I'll try it :)
 
You mentioned the nursing assistant using alcohol gel.

I too use alcohol gel and in hospitals it has to be hospital graded gel. I've never known it to affect my Shellac, but have only recently been wearing Negligee at work (as it is less noticeable).

Are you confident you are getting the correct coverage with just one coat of the white? It may be worth seeing how you get on with doing two, so there is less temptation to increase the thickness of the application.

I also think it's a great idea that you are thinking about a one to one, if you feel you have gone as far as you can with it.
 
You mentioned the nursing assistant using alcohol gel.

I too use alcohol gel and in hospitals it has to be hospital graded gel. I've never known it to affect my Shellac, but have only recently been wearing Negligee at work (as it is less noticeable).

Are you confident you are getting the correct coverage with just one coat of the white? It may be worth seeing how you get on with doing two, so there is less temptation to increase the thickness of the application.

I also think it's a great idea that you are thinking about a one to one, if you feel you have gone as far as you can with it.

That's interesting about the alcohol gel...I feared it may be the case that the gel is unrelated to the peeling :sad: I am also not confident I am getting the right coverage, I find the white does go a bit patchy but then I'm nervous of putting another layer on incase it ends up too thick, so I play about with the smile line until it evens out.
Will try getting two layers on super thin and see how I get on, along with following the other techniques mentioned by others. If I'm still having problems, I'm definitely booking a 121 as this is driving me nuts!! x
 
There are obviously different manufacturers of alcohol gel and not all hospitals use the same. But as I say, they have to use hospital graded gel.

I know you have said you have watched Hollys videos, but do you remember to do her technique of making a margin (in the white) at the sides of the free edge, in order for the topcoat to completely cover the white?

It might be worth checking out that video again and trying two thin coats.

Good luck :)
 

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