⚠Hey girlies! Many of you love/like getting your nails done. For some of you a nail salon may be too high of a price, they don’t come out like you expected, or you’re just not comfortable attending a nail salon. With that, many of you may know or are familiar with student nail techs. Some even from our school, you may recognize some of the pictures that will be shown but for career purposes please keep names to yourself. Thank you. I’ll keep it simple and use “Senior” and the “Junior” for this article⚠

Senior nail tech shared information♥

If you’re wondering “Why this choice in work?” our Senior student shares, “I have liked nails since I was in preschool, and I had my baby at the age of 14 so I decided to start working to earn money for him and I thought that

since I liked nails, I could do that,” taking in this information one can see the sacrifices nail techs encounter. We may imagine a student nail techs life to be simple and like a normal working job but when you do more than that the job is a lot more important. As we continue a big challenge the Senior spoke on was managing her time. She shares light on the fact that she’s not only a student adding, “I am not only a student but a mother as well so what I do is I take 1 client per day except Saturday which I take 2 this way I have time for my child. For school I tend to finish all my work during class.” Balancing life is a big part of having a home-based job. Practice as we can all assume is very important. Like in every job, practice brings out the best performance and there’s always room for improvement.

I have taken online courses and I join vbp lives where the educators sometimes give free classes. After high school I plan to get my license as well ~ Senior

A run through on how our Senior completes an appointment♥

  ~First thing is giving my client and myself sanitizer

~I go ahead and grab their hand and I push back the cuticles

~use a flame nail bit to lift the cuticle and a ball bit on both forward and reverse on the e-file

~I use a 240-sanding band to take off the shine form the natural nail

~I add the nail tip add dehydrator and super bond (2 fingers at a time for better retention) and apply the acrylics to those 2 nails

~repeat until I finish application

~After application I file the nails with a hand file of 100/180 grits

~Then I go back with my e-fie to seal the cuticle area

~I buff after and then send my clients to wash their hands

~I do use a scrub with its complementary

 ~After I do the design they choose, I then add topcoat and cuticle oil

 ~I take pictures and we are done

      I love character nails art I have really liked it in forever. I feel like my work still needs more but i am pretty goof at it either way i have done quite a few character nail art like Betty boop, SpongeBob, the lion king and more~Senior

For those of us with experience we know we all get memorable moments at our jobs. This Senior shares her most memorable moment happily expressing,

“When my child said to me “mommy se ven bonita’s tus unas” it made me feel so good inside because everything that I do I do it for him. To make sure he is okay, and his words made me feel better about myself.”

 We end off in a good note with this and taking some advice from her to anyone looking to start and are interested in this career she gladly shares that patience is very important because, ” it takes time to perfect your work and gain clients”. She shares that for beginners it’s important to focus on application because it’s the foundation to making the job work, without mastering your application the nails may end up falling off way quicker. 

“I would say if it’s something you really want then to do it, but definitely have patience because it takes time to perfect your work and gain clients. If you are a beginner focus on your application, your liquid to powder ratio nail art is less important because application is the foundation of a nail and if you don’t get that down then the nail falls

off quicker so practice a lot.”

A word from our Junior♥

For those of you who want and feel like being a nail tech is something you might get into, this Junior shares some insight on what is best to have as a beginner. Inspiration is very important, and she shared what sparked her interest stating, “I’ve decided to be a nail technician due to me wanting to do my own nails, I was always up to art designs and buying small nail kits at stores thinking I want to become a nail technician. I wasn’t too sure about it. I decided to go for my dream and since I want to be a cosmetology student I wanted to learn at a young age.”

Commonly asked Questions: Answers from the Junior♥

What resources or sources did you find most helpful when starting out as a beginner nail tech? Some resources I found most helpful starting as nail tech was practicing on myself. I would go to the store by a small kit and practice nonstop until I would get a perfect nail set. I didn’t really look at videos I just viewed it as my own imagination how they would look like.

What are some of the basic tools and products that every beginner nail tech should have in their kit? Some basic tools and products that every beginner nail technician should have is always some good monomer, the better the primer is the better the retention. Another thing is good nail tips, there’s a lot of variety of nail tips but I really recommend have 4 different types of nail tips (c curve, round curve, square, coffin). I recommend these because they have better grip then other nails tips. When it comes to files, I recommend 80/100 or 80/80 , straight file then 50/50 or 60/100. DONT go for the cheap stuff we all get we might be on a budget but if you really want  good nails and quality nails spend on some good expensive stuff the cheap stuff isn’t worth your time and money!

 What are some common mistakes that beginners often make, and how can they avoid or overcome them? Some common mistakes beginners often make is forgetting to disinfect their supplies or using the same tools for the next client, also adding too much monomer to your acrylic bead or as well using the wrong nail monomer or acrylic powder, the way they can avoid them is buy buying barbicide and using money to use on their tools, and also I recommend taking a class training if you want to grow faster.

What advice would you give to other beginners who are just starting their journey in the nail industry? Some advice I would give to other beginner who just started their nail journey would be don’t give up if you see no clients coming to you and keep on practicing what you love to do at the end of the day everything is worth it.

 What are your goals or aspirations for you career as a nail technician in the future? Some goals and aspirations for my care as a nail technician in the future would be getting a full education on nails and getting my license as a nail technician, also creating my own brand of primers, monomer, acrylic powder brands, and owning my own salon and being my own boss.