New to colored acrylic have questions!

[TheNailBarista]

Although I still consider myself very new to the world of l&p acrylics compared to most on here as I've only been doing them for about a year since my training. I've recently grown interest in colored acrylics, as they seem to be less bulky looking than acrylic with gel on top (which is what I normally do) and it seems like a lot less steps.

Although my local nail supply stores both agree that this trend will soon become very popular, I can barely find anything on YouTube as well as on here about them - The only place I've seen them are on instagram and they look amazing. So here are my questions:

1. Do I need to put a thing layer of clear acrylic as a base before the colored acrylic in case they want a new color on their next visit?
2. Should I cap it with clear acrylic at the end before filling and buffing?
3. I currently use the NSI Attraction l&p system, and have purchased a couple of Glam & Glits colored acrylics, can I use my NSI monomer with the G&G?
4. Are they more time consuming or less time consuming in your opinions? What are your overall thoughts...

Before anyone asks, I have acrylic training with NSI, but as of now, there are no courses on Glam & Glits colored acrylic (yet) hence all the questions, please understand

 

[nailpod]

Hi there I also use Nsi
And then their coloured acrylics which are actually a lot more pricey then regular acrylic so just make sure you charge correctly and don't loose money.

Coloured sets I don't do fills due to the client 9/10 times changing her mind of the colour, the hack of buffing the entire colour acrylic off is shocking ! Don't do it ! I looked like I had mass murdered someone after filling off red acrylic to change the colour , this is when I decided to not do that again.

I have used nsi monomer with another brand of coloured acrylic when I could not find the right purple I wanted in Nsi but it just was not the same std as my Nsi so I shall not be doing that again!

You can make your own colours which is what I now do. Buy clear pots and create your own colours, much cheaper then keeping the whole range.

 

[TheNailBarista]

So I guess in general it actually ends up being more time consuming since you have to soak and start all over again. Hmmm

 

[Emily S]

I have never understood using colour acrylic, we trained in it at college but infills were impossible and soak offs are something I avoid at the best of times so can't see a way around it?

Curious to know other people's opinions as there's so many amazing techs who use coloured acrylic and pride themselves on not using polish but it seems to time consuming, messy and expensive ...

 

[mandy1985]

I use a lot of colour acrylic to do coloured tips. I don't tend to do a whole nail in colour acrylic though. I use crystal nails colours and just do a very thin layer then cap with clear. I use my efile to remove acrylic during Infills X

 

[Emily S]

I use a lot of colour acrylic to do coloured tips. I don't tend to do a whole nail in colour acrylic though. I use crystal nails colours and just do a very thin layer then cap with clear. I use my efile to remove acrylic during Infills X

How long would an infill take you if changing colour?

 

[TheNailBarista]

I haven't experimented a refill yet, but as for the full set I did on myself it cut the time in half practically. Because normally for a regular full set with gel on top I have to:
1. Prep
2. Prime
3. Apply acrylic
4. Drill
5. Buff
6. Base coat/cure
7. First colour coat/cure
8. Second color coat/ cure
9. Sometimes third colour coat depending on colour/ cure
10. Top coat/cure

With the coloured acrylic all I had to do was
1. prep
2. prime
3. apply acrylic
4. file/buff
5. Topcoat/cure

It was so much less time and looked way nicer and less bulky, I was pretty excited about this.