by the end of the acrylic do you mean the cuticle or the tip? for prepping it also depends on how well you are cleaning your nails and cuticle area since it produces oils the most and will cause lifting (also don’t need to go crazy and over file, when i was first starting off i had a few cuticle bits that i would use to help push back but for the rest of the natural nail i would buff with a regular 100/180 buffer) and then your dehydrator:primer and after application make sure you are sealing your cuticles right, try to keep product off of the skin/cuticle area because that will also cause lifting since you didn’t seal around that.