Frequently asked questions
What is on the colour acrylic clearance page?
370 jars, all of them 2-in-1 powders that dip with a base and activator and also sculpt with EMA monomer. Chisel accounts for 252 of them, which is the complete Chisel colour catalogue of 138 ombre jars, 111 S-coded solids, and three 12 oz refills, then DND with 73, SNS with 36 from the Basics range, Kiara Sky with 8 All In One clear and cover powders, and one from Gelish. Sixty-five of the 370 are out of stock at the time of writing.
Does clearance mean the powder is discounted or old?
Neither. At ND clearance means the shade sells until the stock is gone and is not reordered; the price is the regular wholesale price and the powder is the same product it has always been. What ends is the line at ND rather than anything about the jar. Because most of this page is a single brand rather than a few discontinued numbers, a salon that has built its wall on it is planning a replacement system rather than a replacement shade.
How should a salon buy from a whole range that is ending?
Pull the client cards first and treat the codes used in the last three months as the shopping list. Double anything a tech reaches for weekly, take coded ombre pairs whole because half a pair is just a solid colour, and move a daily shade to the salon size where one is listed. Fill the permanent gaps from a restocked line, and swatch every code beside its nearest restocked neighbour so both numbers sit on the client card before the last jar goes.
Can one jar serve both the dip and the acrylic station?
Yes, every powder here is 2-in-1: dipped with bonder, base, and activator with no lamp, or picked up as a bead with EMA monomer on a size 10 to 20 brush for length. Keep two physical jars of any shade used at both stations, because a drop of monomer clumps a dip jar permanently and a brush that has been in dip base is no longer usable for beadwork. The consumables should come from a line that is still restocked.
What clearance means on this page
370 colour acrylic and dipping powders carry the clearance tag at ND. The tag means the shade sells until the stock is gone and is not reordered. It is not a markdown: the price beside a clearance jar is the regular wholesale price, and the powder is the same product it has always been. What is ending is the line at ND rather than anything about the jar.
Sixty-five of the 370 are out of stock as this page was written. Every powder here is a 2-in-1, which means it dips with a base and activator and also picks up as a bead with EMA monomer, so a single jar can serve a dip station and an acrylic station.
What is on the page
| Line | Jars | What it is |
|---|---|---|
| Chisel | 252 | The whole Chisel colour range: 138 ombre jars, 111 S-coded solids, and three of the 12 oz refills |
| DND | 73 | Numbered acrylic and dip powders from the DND chart |
| SNS | 36 | The SNS Basics colour powders in 1.5 oz |
| Kiara Sky | 8 | All In One clear and cover powders, listed in 2 oz and 12 oz |
| Gelish | 1 | A single powder from the Gelish range |
A whole brand, not a handful of shades
What makes this page different from the other clearance collections at ND is that most of it is one brand rather than the tail of several. The 252 Chisel jars are the complete Chisel colour catalogue: the ombre pairs coded OM001 to OM102, the S-coded solids, and the salon refills. A salon that has built its dip or acrylic wall on Chisel is therefore not looking at a few discontinued numbers but at the end of the line at ND, which changes the planning from replacing a shade to replacing a system.
The practical response is the same as for any range in run-out, done at a larger scale: back up the codes already in rotation, take ombre pairs whole because half a pair is a solid colour, and swatch the wall against a line ND restocks before the last jars go.
How to buy from a range that is ending
- Pull the client cards first. The codes used in the last three months are the shopping list, not the prettiest jars on the chart.
- Double the repeaters. Any shade a tech reaches for weekly gets two jars, because the second one is the only warning before it is gone.
- Take coded pairs whole. An ombre fade needs both halves; buying one gives a solid colour with a confusing label.
- Move a daily shade to the salon size where one is listed, since a station that repeats a colour every day empties a desk jar fast.
- Fill the permanent gaps from a restocked line. Anything the salon must always have belongs on a line still in production.
- Swatch everything and write both codes on the card. The Chisel code the client knows and the replacement number the tech will open.
One jar, two services
- As dip: bonder, a thin base, dip, tap, brush, repeat, activator, file, buff, activator again, then top. No lamp.
- As acrylic: picked up as a bead with EMA monomer on a size 10 to 20 brush and sculpted over a form or tip, which is the route for length.
- Keep two jars of any shade used at both stations. One drop of monomer clumps a dip jar permanently.
- Keep the brushes apart too. A brush that has been in dip base is finished for beadwork.
- Check the consumables. A clearing colour still needs base, activator, top, or monomer from a line that is restocked.
Matching a code before it disappears
The swatch work costs an hour and saves a year. Paint one stick per code the salon still uses, lay each beside the nearest number from a line ND restocks, and write both codes on the client card. Keep the sticks in code order at the station rather than in a folder in the office, because the substitution has to happen in the ten seconds before a service starts. A client who was on one number moves to its swatched neighbour at her next appointment without a conversation about discontinued stock.
Do not rely on numbers or names matching across brands. A code means something only inside its own line, and two shades that share a name from different lines are rarely the same colour on the nail.
Storage, because there is no second chance
Powder is ruined by moisture and by contamination. Close each jar the moment the dip is finished rather than at the end of the client, store jars upright and away from the acetone shelf and direct sun, and never dip a client's finger into the house jar: pour into a tray, use what is needed, and sift the rest back. Label the lid with the code, not the colour name, because on a clearing range the code is the only thing that survives the shade. A jar that has taken on damp lays a gritty layer that no amount of filing hides.
Sizes on this page
Most of these jars are desk sizes, with a small group listed in both a 2 oz and a 12 oz build for the shades a station uses every day. On a clearing range the larger size is worth taking only where the salon genuinely repeats the colour, because a 12 oz jar of a shade used twice a month will still be mostly full when the service is retired. Where the salon runs a French or a cover shade daily, the opposite is true and the bigger jar is the one to secure.
Replacing a system rather than a shade
When a whole colour line runs out, the thing a salon has to replace is not the chart but the habit: the way a tech judges the bead, the number of dips a shade needs, and how the powder files. A replacement line will behave slightly differently, and the time to find that out is while the old jars are still on the shelf. Take one restocked line, run a few sets on it alongside the clearing range, and let the techs settle on the timing before the changeover is forced.
The other half is the chart itself. Rather than matching 250 codes, match the twenty or thirty that the salon actually uses, then let the new line's own chart fill the rest. A wall rebuilt shade by shade from a discontinued range ends up as a museum of near-matches; a wall rebuilt on one current line looks deliberate and can be reordered.
Which jars are worth taking now
- The codes on active client cards, in pairs, because a fill needs the same jar rather than a close match.
- Complete ombre pairs, since a fade only works when both halves exist.
- The salon-size refills of any shade used daily, where a larger build is listed.
- One jar of anything used for display and swatch sticks, which never needs to be reordered.
- Nothing that is only on the wall because it looks good in the box, which is how a clearance order turns into dead stock.
What to tell a client
Not the word clearance, which only invites a question about the age of the product. What a client needs to hear is that the shade is available now, that it will not be available forever, and that the salon has already matched a replacement for when it runs out. Said that way, a range in run-out keeps its clients rather than losing them on the day the last jar is empty.
Using up the last of a jar
Powder at the bottom of a jar behaves differently from powder at the top, because the finest particles settle. The last third picks up heavier and can look slightly deeper on the nail, which matters on a French or a cover shade where two fingers done from a fresh jar and three from an old one will not quite match. On a range that cannot be reordered, the practical answer is to finish a jar within a single set rather than across two clients, and to open the backup jar for a full set instead of topping up mid-hand.
Wholesale pricing at ND Nails Supply
Every jar on this page ships at wholesale pricing for everyone, with no business license, no minimum order, and no membership fee. Clearance shades sell at their regular wholesale price until the stock is gone and are not reordered. Free shipping on orders $100+, and in-stock jars ordered before 2pm PT on weekdays leave the same day.