HELP!! pulling my hair out here!!

[Jaffacake]

Hiya, hope someone can help me before i throw my acrylic out the window! lol
I havent been using it for a while but decided last night i must start practising with it again (im not good at it). I dont know if its something im doing wrong but i havent had any problems with it before....my brush starts off clean, new liquid in a clean dappen dish etc..... I dip the brush, wipe and get a ball of acrylic and put onto the nail....but i cant wipe the brush clean again to put back into the powder, its got little grains of acrylic that almost look like icing sugar all over it and it wont come off even if i really rub it on the couch roll, i end up contaminating the liquid making it cloudy! I used NSI simplicite last night and had problems and tonight ive used a salon system acrylic that i got in a job lot of stuff just to see if it was any better, but no, exactly the same problem! can anyone think of anything im doing that would be causing this? its not overly warm or cold or anything, or do liquids just 'go off' or something? ive probably had it about 18 months or so??
Im not a happy bunny :cry: thanks x

 

[naturalnails]

Hi Sherrie,

you poor thing - you are having a crisis at the moment aren't you.

It is difficult for me to imagine what is happening from your description but I will try.

Do you completely saturate your brush to get rid of any air bubbles before you start?

Are you sure that your mix ratio is correct?

Try getting a bit of laminated A4 paper with lots of smallish circles and make beads, place them on the circles to check how much they settle or not - this will tell you if your ratio is correct.

Let us know about this and we can probably, hopefully help you further - please don't chuck the towel in - trust us, we can help LOL.

 

[Jaffacake]

Hiya, yes i completely dunk the brush into the bottom of the dish to splay out the bristles and remove air bubbles, the ratio should be ok because its supposed to be 'perfect product pick up every time' lol, but if anything it may be a little wet! I wont chuck in the towel, gonna keep trying, its just infuriating that i have to keep stopping to soak my brush in brush cleaner to remove the 'sugar' and i cant afford to keep throwing the monomer away because its contaminated.. Thanks for your help x

 

[naturalnails]

Have you tried not using the brush cleaner - if you have a dappen dish of monomer which you use to clean your brush if it gets clogged and a second dappen dish of monomer for using to do your nails.

Just a thought - I have never used brush cleaner so I don't know what is in it - but all the information I have come across says to only use monomer to clean your brush.

 

[scratchmyback]

I think you may be working too wet. When I was learning L&P I had the same problem with lumps in my brush. Now that I understand the ratio I never have residue in my brush after placing a ball on a nail. All the product ends up on the nail, it doesn't stay in the brush.

Try practicing your ratio till you get it right. If your beads flatten out and have a ring of monomer around them, you are definitely working too wet.

Laura

 

[Cathie!]

Or, it could be that your brush is contaminated with bits of old polymerised acrylic.

As the acrylic already looks like icing sugar and has probably already polymerised perhaps it has been there a while and your brush needs a really good clean.

Does your brush feel a bit stiff before you start using it? If so this may well be the case.

As Fiona said, give it a good soak in your monomer and run the bristles through the couch roll to try and remove any bits of polymerised l/p.

HTH

 

[Jaffacake]

Thanks for all that, i think you may be right, the brush did feel a little stiff before i started so maybe it did still have old acrylic on it, i did think i cleaned it properly last time i used it though but obviously not! the brush cleaner is acetone based, maybe i shouldnt be using that either? just thought as it was 'brush cleaner'.....
I will have a look to see if there is a ring of monomer around my ball. Thanks i feel better now. xx

 

[Debs]

Brush cleaner isn`t always advisable. The best thing to clean your brush clean monomer after you`ve finished with it.
It definitely sounds contaminated to me, if its not yellowing on towel but you have a hard brush before you use it then it has product in it already.
Dip your brush and press it onto a clean paper towel, do you have yellowing left on the towel?
If it is contaminated, you could try leaving it in monomer for a while to soften it and it may come out with gentle persuasion. HTH

 

[Fab Freak]

I had exactly the same problem and it was because I was working to wet...I have been told that NSI powders are quite similar to the OPi i work with.

I now work this way

Fresh dapen dish monomer for white and one for pink, helps avoid contamination from the strong pigment in the white polymer.


Plunge brush to bottom of monomer (for white work) and press air bubbles out then wipe brush from end to the tip three times and try a pick a bead up and place on tip, and leave it 2 seconds to relax, and then press into place, and if you still get acrylic sticking to the brush then you are still working too wet,

So Start again and wipe brush with more pressure on side of dappen dish and place and work...if its to dry then i find you wont be able to work with it will look to bitty, and when you place it on the tip it wont relax after a count of two (or more for that matter)...

The more you wipe the brush the lesser amount monomer is there is in the brush the less polymer you will be able to pick up,

If you wipe your brush from the centre to tip 3 times then you will have more monomer as you are draining less out and the bigger the bead will be...

I hope this makes sence but this is how i was re-taught to do L&P to correct my wet ration and to get rid of those silly bits on my brush.....

Hope this helps and makes sence if not post back....

 

[Jaffacake]

Hi Louise, yes that makes perfect sense, thanks. I hadnt thought about the white having more pigment than the pink! for the last couple of nights i havent even got past the white stage!! :cry:
Its a good tip to have 2 dishes of monomer, do you still do that now or did you revert back to just one when you had the hang of it? I now think the reason my brush was a bit stiff was that the liquid i tried to clean it with wasnt fresh, and maybe it was a bit cloudy and contaminated, so when i thought the brush was clean it wasn't!
Thank heavens for this site thats all i can say!! I would definately have given it all up if it werent for you lot......Thanks so much xx

 

[Fab Freak]

Hi Louise, yes that makes perfect sense, thanks. I hadnt thought about the white having more pigment than the pink! for the last couple of nights i havent even got past the white stage!! :cry:
Its a good tip to have 2 dishes of monomer, do you still do that now or did you revert back to just one when you had the hang of it? I now think the reason my brush was a bit stiff was that the liquid i tried to clean it with wasnt fresh, and maybe it was a bit cloudy and contaminated, so when i thought the brush was clean it wasn't!
Thank heavens for this site thats all i can say!! I would definately have given it all up if it werent for you lot......Thanks so much xx

hI sherrie - glad i could help, I am still using this method due to the polmer of the brand i use, but I am swapping to Nail Order soon and hopefully i wont have to due to the limited of sets I do in a day :lol: that will be one hmmm

But if i did more sets then I would work this way....

And yes your brush shouldl be silky soft and never stiff so that means there is product left in it...sometimes if you are not sure if it is clean enought I stick a big blob of blue tac to a wall then suspend the brush in a dappen dish of monomer once I get home to be on the safe side...but I dont have to do that anymore..

 

[Teena_B]

Just a thought here, dunno if it is connected but I will just mention, in other threads people have siad not to use different product makes with the same brush. You say you used NSI, then you used Salon System, are you using separate brushes? Maybe the different makes are contaminating each other if in the same brush? Does this make sense?
HTH