The perfect bead will absorb all the powder on the brush within 3-4 seconds after pick-up. Then, the acrylic goes through a dimply orange peel like state, before turning glossy and smooth and as soon as this gloss happens, this is the point that you place the bead on the nail. Not directly after picking it up from the container, it needs a few seconds to go through this 3 step process. Once placed, the bead will settle slightly within the first 4 seconds and at around the 15 seconds mark, it’s completely finished its settling process.
if you’re practising on a plastic sheet and your bead immediately runs and flattens within just seconds, it’s too wet. and you’ll also notice a ring of liquid around that bead. You don’t want this happening on the natural nail plate because that excess liquid is going to run into the sidewalls and overexpose your client to the monomer. Now you’ll also find that after placing a wet bead, after slightly curing, you’re going to feel an intense heat coming off of that bead. This is a huge indicator that your beads are too wet and if you’re client ever comments that the the acrylic is feeling hot on their nail plates, you’re most definitely working too wet.
Likewise, if you place your bead, and it’s still powdery or not budging at all, it’s too dry. Often, these beads will appear lumpy or have white clumps of acrylic because there wasn’t enough liquid to dissolve the powder. The perfect bead will also leave the brush smoothly with minimal effort and minimal residue on your brush. A wet bead will release, but half the bead will cling to the tips of your bristles are produce a gummy mess. A dry bead, normally doesn’t want to release at all, it requires a lot of encouragement and leaves clumpy powdery bits behind. Now, acrylic sticks to acrylic so, if your brush is gummy or powdery, you’re going to have trouble with every subsequent bead after that releasing from your brush unless it is cleaned properly to start fresh.