Hi, I'm Suzy, and I'm in the mood for sculpting gel
I got four fingers ready to go, this is gel sculpting 101. Let's get started!
So the rules for sculpting gel or acrylic are the same with whatever you use
and I just want to show you the product that I'm using today, the one I've chosen to work with.
This is called mosaic
I picked this up about a year ago, in Vancouver at a trade show, and I just really like the book
So what drew me to the company was specifically these beautiful colors that they have in gel.
It's a gel overlay, which is a colored gel-- a paint gel, you might say
so we're gonna sculpt with one of their sculpting gels first, then we'll get to the beautiful color
So I'm gonna sculpt today with this cover pink builder gel
before we begin, we have to prep the nail. Now every company has -their- products that they want you to prep with, but it's
Basically all the same to prep the natural nail
Remove the dust, cleanse with an alcohol, do a primer if applicable for one,
Sometimes they have them built in, and then there's usually a clear base of gel that you put on -before- you start sculpting,
Especially if you're applying it to natural nails, that must be applied to natural nails first, so I filed these nails completely
They're ready to go
I haven't put any product on. So I'm gonna start with, and I usually do this with all my gels
Especially because I'm wanting to remove the dust. I do a nice little clean swipe with alcohol and that is
Just cleansing the nail
Getting rid of all the dust
Most product that we work with does -not- like to have
Any dust particles in there. It makes it all bumpy
Especially when you're putting on top coats and finish
Okay, so this company has what we begin with called the freshener
and what we're gonna do with this-- is we're just gonna paint it on every finger carefully
Now I suspect this is an alcohol base as well
OK! and then the second step
Oops! (laughs)
this is called the Ultrabond Primer
I don't think they meant to put that upside down, (chuckles) It's totally a mistake.  Now this is clearly their primer
Now when applying a primer you want to make sure that you're putting it on quite carefully, you do -not- touch the skin
Just place it on the nail plate
(♪♪♪)
So next is a base gel. Most companies will have a base gel to put down first before you put down a sculpting gel
This company has a couple, but I'm gonna use this it's called Architect X
even says right on it for you, 'base gel'
I have noticed it's -very- thick, look at this
Very thick. I don't want to put it on really thick
So I'm going to take some off of the brush. That's not really goopy on me now
It's the last thing I want
So I'm gonna put a nice layer of this
(♪♪♪)
It's leveling up nice, so it has a little bit of a self level to it so you can see that it's not
Chunky or liney or anything, It's actually leveling up quite nice, see that?
there's a bubble on that one, and im gonna try to get rid of it
Okay, that's really pretty
So this needs to be cured in a 36 watt lamp
This one's got a countdown which is kind of handy.  there we go, okay.
So now we are ready to sculpt, so I'm gonna grab a form now this company has beautiful forms
Not that forms have to be pretty, but
these are really pretty. So they have sort of a round shape and then they have the oval shape
my fingers tend to be a bit more the oval so I'm going to grab the oval
I do always rip the top of it
I'm just gonna go like this a little bit
Just to just sort of soften it up a little bit cuz it is a really stiff paper
Every company seems to be a bit different, okay, so I'm gonna slip my finger under there
(♪♪♪)
I usually press my sides down make sure I've got that first and then
Yeah, this goes on much better this time
I'm gonna just pinch that together
I'll look down.. That's a little more straight. I like that
Now every company, like I say, has their own rules of how many wattage they might have and how long you're supposed to nuke it for,
so this is actually only 15 seconds in a 48 watt. Oh
Look at that beautiful color
Okay now
I will have to move this pot out of the way because we're gonna work with it quite and for an old light I
Always like to have a little
Lint free pad next to me
I'm just going to spray that little pad just to clean my brush off
Now they do have a really nice brush. It is called the mosaic gel builder number six
So when you're building a nail like I say whether it's acrylic or gel or whatever you're using
The structure is always the same
And that is you want to make sure you have your arch in the center point very thin near the cuticle
Building an arch and then tapering off ever how long it's going to be and of course
That's a very simplified way of saying it, but when you are applying gel. It's a bit of a different way to apply it
Than it is with acrylic and gel is very
forgiving
There's a little bit of self levelling property up there cause it just kind of zooms up to it
so what I'm going to do is I'm going to put it on to the nail and
Now we've got the base coat on so it's gonna stick to the base coat
But we want to make sure we're building it so what I do is I get it as close to the cuticle as I can
without touching
Whatever gel touches it does stick to
Now you have to watch with some gels depending on the viscosity
You don't want it to self level right into the cuticle
In other words further than where you put it
Now there's several methods you can do
You can ice back and forth
You can do circular motions. I kind of like the circular motions especially near the cuticle
I don't know what viscosity. This would be maybe a medium
It's not running everywhere at all some people also do this method. It's actually quite effective
I do want to lengthen it a bit, so see how I just pulled it right out
Again, gel sticks to sticky gel so wherever you pull it it just kind of follows
Now the beauty of this is it's not curing it will not cure until you put it under the light
that's the beautiful thing about gel
a lot of people don't know but gel and acrylic are made of the same stuff
The same stuff is in it, there's there's acrylic in gel that's what it's made up acrylic
My theory is they called it gel because acrylic was already taken
Try not to make it too thick
I'm just gonna turn it this way a little bit
Will be a really bad angle for you to see they're just trying to get this one side a little bit more filled in
Okay, so I'm gonna cure that I want to say nuke. I'm gonna nuke it
That only needs 15 seconds
Bring my little pink papers back into play my gel back in here, so I can see that it's kind of lumpy and bumpy and
I'm going to
try to fill in those lumps and bumps, and I need a little bit more structure over here and definitely through the arch I
Am gonna do this long pointy finger. I've decided. I really like that
So different gel companies will have different viscosities and sometimes one company will have lots of different viscosities
Just depends on how many products. They actually have
You just got to find the one that works for you
Now gel is a huge advantage in that it's quite a bit easier to learn and
It's not quite as structured as you can see you can sort of lump it on and
You know take your time creating as long as you want you can see that you can take
That time to sculpt whatever you want, and then after you cure it, then you can just shape it which with acrylic
It's you know. It's curing up on you you have to have much choice, but hurry
You have very it's a very short learning time
But this you have a lot of playtime
Now in general I do find that gel is a bit softer of a product more flexible
So it does tend to break more than the acrylic
But if it's done right with proper structure
And you're not a super hard on your nails it can be quite sufficient quite a happy now
See by going back and forth like that you can really fill it in I
Think I need a little bit more decide I'm not happy no, that's not confident that it's gonna be very
strong right in there so to make sure
That it's nice and strong
That's pretty good I feel confident that that's pretty good. I'm gonna nuke that again
Okay so with the gel like you don't have to clean your brush or anything you can just move on you get another form
Again rip that I'm just gonna shape it
Oh phew guys anybody know what it's my thumb
it's Halloween coming so I was just practicing so I thought I'd try the it clown if you can see that above I
Did Instagram I don't have the heart to take it off yet
I am attending an event tomorrow, and I kinda want to keep it on for that so bear with me
He's gonna be creeping around this that you gather video for
So I'm there's a hair on there, I'm just gonna get it off
It's one thing about
Gel, it's very sticky this one was a bit easier to form because the nail free edge is a bit square so it
Was quite a bit easier to form oval ones are harder to form and when I'm pinching the floor. I'm pinching quite a bit
Because I'm not gonna pinch the nail with anything, so I just want to make sure that it's nice and thin
nice and narrow you can see them going quite narrow I
Could actually take this off to see how it looks
And you know I could use this form again see how its formed already I could just stick it under here just might work
Are you better for the pinkie yeah, the cone nicely just sat in there for the pinkie
Now when they make forms stiff like that you can use them again, I wouldn't use them on different people
But I would certainly use it on the same person
Okay, let's build that out now. I notice this cuticle. I'm gonna make it a little bit thinner they can help me here
You do a little bit better newly cuticle
I'm gonna fold this down because caromed has a tough time trying to see it with these pieces of paper sticking up in our way
So the idea is to make it very flush
near the cuticle
And you know the better you are in applying it it just means the less you have to file
And that's always the goal you want to make the application as
Good as you can and you really can do that with gel you can learn a lot faster with gel
Simply because it doesn't rush you at all
See how I'm just building out that fridge
I did forget to see what number he had built this one to
Just have to eyeball it and so the numbers are four on the end just so you can measure basically
Would you want it a bit smoother near the cuticle a bit more structure there
Yeah, I kind of do like those circle motions especially in the cuticle just seems like a natural fit
So just remember whatever you do
The structure is key important if you're making this with flour and water or silly putty for that matter
You just want to make sure the structure. That's what makes a nail is the structure of the structure isn't right
It can be off by a fraction and your client will blow their nail
It's so important to get that structure right and that takes quite a bit
So there is a trick you can do you can turn it upside down for a few seconds
So depending on the viscosity it'll fall into the center for you, and it'll create a natural arch
So I'm just going to nuke this for another 15 seconds
I'm gonna finish sculpting the rest of these and then we can start filing
Take off my forms the best way to take them off I find is to just sort of loosen them
And then pull downward
So
Bunch it up in the center
And then pull down
Sometimes when you take the forms off you get a really good
Look at it, and that's also the time you can decide if you have to add anything that would be the top okay
So Chuck my forms, and then I'm going to clean the surface now
Because spacing should check actually usually there's a sticky layer. Yep
I don't know of anyone that doesn't have a sticky there, so you remove the sticky layer
And now I'm gonna file now I do wear a mask when I'm filing gel specifically because it is quite a soft fine
I'm gonna always do what I'm doing one nail here sometimes
I don't cuz I'm talking and I want you to hear me, but I do wear masks when I'm doing
What I'm doing lots of filing
Okay, so I got some trusty files now. I will tell you gel is quite a bit easier to file
It's a softer product, so you don't have to have a drill with it. I mean I don't have to have a drill with
With acrylic either it just depends on what you want to file
But gel is pretty soft and easy to file with a hand file
So what you want to do is you want to go over top the whole thing
But you don't want to file it flat
you want to keep your file in a
ground half barrel motion
When you do that. You keep the nail round you don't want your nail flat
So I'm either
Turning my hand or I'm turning the file in this case
I'm holding my hand frozen into one spot
so you can see how much I'm turning my file see that just literally going like this as
I file I'm rocking back and forth
What it does is all the high areas you have
When you file like that you're taking all the high areas down to match the low areas, and that's what gives it that nice smooth
Finish look how easy that was to file my goodness. We're just about done
So now I'm just being gentle right near the cuticle
I'm checking for any there's a bump and left over here, so I'm just gonna take that out from underneath
Now can you see if I wipe this like this you see those little shiny spots right there
See those that is where the file has not hit that
Surface yet, it hasn't been filed so that means it's a pocket. It's a dip it sound like a pothole
So I still need to make sure I'm filing
So that eventually you don't see that you see this chalkiness
over top of the whole thing
Even this cuticle area that hasn't been filed now now it has didn't take much to get that so now these are still pockets
They're dips
So I've got two choices to file it where it's smooth so that you don't see that anymore
But if it's really deep I may have to fill it
But it looks like yeah a couple of buffs, and they're gone, so they were quite shallow
Okay, well that filed up
really fast, that's one advantage, and that's why it's a little bit softer too because
It's just a softer product. So it files up really quick
I'm just going to finish it
And this file is just a buffing file. This is not shaping
So many different grits and files that we need when we're making nails. Oh my goodness
Look how fast that filed up that was no time at all. I don't even use the drill
that is one beautiful thing about gel
Okay, so I'm just gonna go ahead and file the rest of these
They're a pointy now, we're gonna add some
Beauty I'm in the mood for nude. I said everything like nude even my shirt, and we're gonna pick a pretty color
And that's what we're going to do next
Okay, so I filed them up really fast. They're super pointy
And now I am ready to
Put some beautiful color on them you can see it's a very beautiful color
Before we put color on it, but I just want to get some of the colors from there on it
so this is their gel paints and
Again, you can sculpt this with any product that you're using and just I have to pick a product so I picked this one today
Nice oh, that's just gorgeous, so I've got two packages
So this is called a good evening kit, and it's sort of an international theme
So I believe I'm wearing Dublin, so let's see well. Here's the colors on the edge there
Let's try in London and in Stockholm
London and Stockholm
And this kit, this is good morning kit
Okay well, let's try, Ottawa because you know I'm Canadian and
You pick one Camera Man which one Helsinki, Helsinki, Ottawa and Helsinki
Ottowa
I just like to say Helsinki
And Helsinki
They're all gorgeous okay, so I'm gonna use this brush again, so let's start with Helsinki
Pretty
Now this is not a builder gel
This is a colored gel, so we simply want to paint it on just like we would a nail polish
We're just doing it with this brush
Mm, this is pretty, too
Nudes are very interesting they can look beautiful on one person and
Not so nice on another and is strictly based on skin tone
Ottawa is pretty
It's an, oh yeah it's really pretty, Ottawa apparently is beautiful I've never been to Ottawa that are supposed to be beautiful
Oh
Lovely
beautiful soft nudes
now Stockholm
And we'll see if these two are very similar in color, which one actually might be darker
Yeah, it does look like this one might be a little bit darker, so
Clean that brush up, and if you're having trouble just spray with a little bit of alcohol and just wipe your brush
It's kind of a grey like a London Fog
It's very pretty I love gray
Now again, this is gel. It's not curing up on you, so you have a lot of time to just
smooth it over
And make sure you're happy with it
Very pretty
Okay, so I'm gonna put them out of my light rays and I'm gonna nuke them
Okay, so I'm gonna give them all a second coat and now is the time for the reveals. Let's check out the nudes
Well they turned out beautiful and now I'm gonna see how long the mosaic brand wears, and how well they wear
But that's how you sculpt it. No matter what product you're using so I want to tell you guys about Instagram
I'm having so much fun on Instagram and posting crazy things like this nail and
Other Halloween designs and grant getting a spray tan which is so much fun
But you want to check me out. It's nail career education on Instagram
I'd love to see you guys there and what you're doing with your nails
Thank you for joining me for this video, and I can't wait to see you guys in the next one
