What is a primer and is it necessary in manicure?

Per­fect cov­er­age starts with a primer. This is an axiom.

A primer, or “dou­ble-sided tape” as it is often called, is a spe­cial liq­uid that improves the adhe­sion of a nat­ur­al nail plate to a coat­ing (gel pol­ish or exten­sion gel).

Primer types

Primers are acidic and acid-free.

Tar­get

• both of these liq­uid prod­ucts are designed to cleanse and dis­in­fect the nail plate
• serve as a lig­a­ment between the nail plate and the coat­ing
• pre­vent the devel­op­ment of fun­gal infec­tions of the nail
• improve adhe­sion of arti­fi­cial coat­ing and nail plate

Primer dif­fer­ence

The acid primer, due to its com­po­si­tion, lifts the scales of the nail plate. This improves adhe­sion to bases and mod­el­ing tools.

This means that it is more aggres­sive and is used in cas­es where more thor­ough prepa­ra­tion of the nail plate is nec­es­sary, for exam­ple, with exten­sions or prob­lem nails.

Fea­tures of this prod­uct:

• makes the sur­face per­fect­ly matt
• used to improve adhe­sion both with exten­sions and under gel pol­ish
• evens out the pH bal­ance of the nail plate
• pre­pares nails for fur­ther coat­ing
• indis­pens­able for high humid­i­ty of the nail plat­inum and prob­lems with wear­ing a long-term coat­ing.

An acid-free primer has a dif­fer­ent prin­ci­ple of action. It’s like a heavy-duty dou­ble-sided tape — it cre­ates a sticky lay­er for bet­ter grip.

Fea­tures of this prod­uct:

• more gen­tle for­mu­la com­pared to acid primer
• great for a 3‑phase gel pol­ish sys­tem and as a base for acid-free gels
• no acid odor
• thanks to the resid­ual tack, it per­fect­ly inter­feres with the mol­e­c­u­lar com­po­si­tion of the base or build­ing agent

Some mas­ters skip this step, but we rec­om­mend using primers to ensure the longest pos­si­ble wear­ing of the coat­ing with­out peel­ing or chip­ping.

This reduces the con­sump­tion of mate­ri­als, con­tributes to a more uni­form appli­ca­tion of the base and makes it eas­i­er to work with com­plex nail plates.

Application

The primer is applied with a well-wrung brush on the sur­face of the nail, avoid­ing con­tact with the skin. Air dry in 1 minute. Then you can use bases and exten­sions.

For max­i­mum effect, apply a thin lay­er and do not lay­er each sub­se­quent stroke on top of each oth­er, but join with the pre­vi­ous one.