How To Apply PureFoundation
Are you ready to try HONA's latest innovation? PureFoundation is HONA's universal gel product that is of course hypoallergenic and can be used as a strengthening base, builder gel and a SwiftTip Adhesive.
It has been formulated by Jim McConnell one of the foremost leaders in gel polish chemistry and works by forming robust bonds with keratin – the fundamental protein in nails. This leads to dramatically enhanced adhesion, reducing the risk of peeling and chipping and ensuring your manicures are both durable and long-lasting. Perfect for your heavier-handed clients.
Check out our tutorial below for all you need to know about PureFoundation and how it's applied.
Video Transcript
Hello guys, welcome back to another HONA tutorial. Today we're going over applying PureFoundation, from prep of the natural nail, all the way through to a structured manicure. So, stay tuned for all the tips.
So we're starting off with completely naked nails and doing all of our usual cuticle prep. This includes pushing back the cuticles with a cuticle pusher, removing any non-living tissue riding on the nail plate with a manicure tool. And then we'll go into etching the nail plate and how we can do that effectively. As well as the aesthetics there are a number of reasons we want to perfect our natural nail prep. By pushing back the cuticles, were creating more space and more room on the nail to work with. And when removing any non-living tissue riding on the nail plate, any debris left on this natural nail plate is going to be a possibility for lifting and chipping. That product will not adhere as effectively to the natural nail plate. So this step is vital. How you do your natural nail prep is completely up to you.
Whether you're using manual tools like I am in this video or an E file, it really doesn't matter as long as the end result is the same. We're just looking for a clean surface to work on how you get there is totally up to you.
Once you've finished working on the nail plate, you can move on to nipping away any non-living tissue from the cuticle area. With either nippers or cuticle scissors like I'm using here. It's important to be quite specific and picky with which fingers you're using your scissors on, not every finger will need to be nipped. It's just non-living tissue which is identifiable by the colour it's usually a lot lighter in colour, texture as well as dry and it's usually very very recognisable. If a client is experiencing any kind of discomfort, which we should be checking throughout the nail process anyway, then just stop what you're doing and reassess. If there's any blood or discomfort it means that we're nipping away at blood vessels and nerve endings, which shouldn't happen if we’re nipping non-living tissue. I'm going to be using our new etching tool in the 150 grits to prep the nail plate as well. So I'm just going to be using here 100% pure acetone to dehydrate the nail surface. It's really important to do this before we attach because we don't want to ingrain any natural nail oils, makeup or dirt into the grooves that we're creating when we attach.
So I've just taken one of the adhesive files, stuck it onto my etching Tool, and I'm just very very gently touching the entire nail surface. It's a lot easier to do this with the manicure tool because it's so much smaller. But you can do this with a 150 Grit file as well. You just have to be a little bit careful with the surrounding skin because it is a much larger surface area. Working on a tiny little fingernail and repeating the same buffing motion on every single fingernail, my pressure is minimal in fact, almost nothing at all. I'm just letting the weight of the tool do the work for me. As soon as one area of the nail is etched, I'm moving on to a different area. What we don't want to do is over etch and risk damaging the nail plate. Although 150 Grit is perfectly safe for the natural nail plate. What makes it safe is the method that we use in order to catch the nail once you've etched all of the nails, go ahead and dust off and then cleanse again using acetone, making sure that you go right down the sidewalls and get rid of any of that dust.
Okay, now we're ready to move on to gel application. I start all of my treatments with PureBond. Now just because if you can get extra adhesion, why not. So I'm just going to put a thin layer of this all over the nail including the free edge on every single finger and then cure in the lamp for 30 seconds.
Now we're moving on to our PureFoundation application, which is our brand new universal gel product. This can be used as just a base coat, as a strengthening gel overlay like a builder gel, and it can be used with our SwiftTip system. So this is an extremely versatile product and definitely one that you'll need in your kits. You don't have to use PureBond with this but as I mentioned earlier, I just like to use PureBond with all of my clients because why not PureFoundation has a slightly thicker viscosity to PureBuild. So for those who struggle with the slightly looser viscosity of your build, this is going to be a good one for you. And to give you a little inside scoop we are planning on releasing tinted PureFoundation as well. So you can expect a range of shades to suit all of your clients.
So back to the tutorial, I'm just applying a paper layer just like we do with PureBuild, or a base coat layer, however you want to describe it before I go in with my structure layer. Once I've applied that to all of my nails, I'm going to pop that into the lamp to cure for 60 seconds, you might be asking yourself, what else is different about your foundation? Well, it uses ingredients that actually bond with the keratin in your nail. So you can expect pretty amazing adhesion with this product. Just like we do with any other builder we are going to start with a bead, nudge that up towards the cuticle area and then float that down the nail. How you do this bit is completely up to you everyone has their floating technique, as long as the end result is the same, it doesn't matter how you get there. For me, I'm going up pulling some product down and then across the nail and repeating on the opposite side. And then on the volume of products I need, I get another bead and pull that down the centre of the nail just to have that concentration of product that ready for the apex.
I'm just tidying up a little bit with my Liner Brush, just reaching all the areas that I didn't before like the cuticle area and sidewall and then flipping the hand upside down. This is where the magic happens. So when the hand is upside down, we have complete control over where that apex is placed. So all that product is going to collapse because of gravity. If I need the product to be closer towards the free edge, then I can point that finger down towards the desk. If I need the apex to be closer towards the cuticle area, then I can point the finger up towards the ceiling and make sure my apex is positioned exactly where I need it. This is why it's so vital to work one finger at a time when you're building a structured molecule. If I was to move on to the second finger without curing the finger I did before all of that structure and Apex that we've created is completely going to disappear is probably going to flood or the nail is going to be too flat. So I'm going to make sure that I am curing in between fingers, I swapped between hands. So while I'm curing one hand and working on the other, so I'm not losing any time whatsoever. But what I am doing is ensuring that my apex is positioned perfectly.
Once again, I'm just going to show you that hand being flipped over a hand is upside down at the moment, I'm going to let gravity do its thing for a few seconds, sometimes 10 to 15 seconds, all of that product is going to gather as you can see here, it's all in one place that concentration of product. If I need that closer towards the free edge, I can take the hands down towards the desk if I was centralising the apex or if I wanted my Apex placed further back, then hand up towards the ceiling. You can put the hand upside down as many times as you need to. Just remember if your hand is upside down and all the product is gathering towards the centre, you may just have to go in like I am now with a brush, just refine and make sure it isn't receding back away from the free edge. If you need to refine it, now is the time to do it. Just make sure you wipe off the tacky inhibition layer first, like I said nine times out of 10 that you won't need to refine with this method.
I did want to refine just slightly on the middle finger where the hand was in the lamp on the wall. However, usually that won't be necessary with this non-refined method. It goes without saying that all of our products need to be capped at every single stage and when you're refining make sure that you don't file off that cap. When filing the free edge with the non refined method you shouldn't need to file the free edge anyway because we're balancing the nail whilst it's upside down. But if you have the burning urge to do that try and file on top of the free edge rather than the edge itself. Once you've applied your PureFoundation and refined if necessary, then you can go in with colour or nail art or top coat like I am if you're finding your top coat is going a little bit streaky, it might just be because the inhibition layer is interrupting it slightly. So try wiping off the inhibition layer and then going in with your top coat and you'll find that it's a lot smoother. Let it settle for a few seconds as well before you cure and that will make sure everything is smooth. When you’ve applied your top coat to all of your nails you can pop that in the lamp to cure for 60 seconds and this is the final results. I hope you enjoyed watching this video. I hope you've learned something. If you have any questions make sure you leave them in the comments below and we will see you in the next one. Bye