Can you turn out a professional polish job?

[pringle12]

Iv not done the colour gels yet so ,yes i love doing polish, iv alway got a french polish on my nails or a diffrent design when i get board of french lol. I had my friend round on wed and she had very dark red polish on all ten nails ,then silver glitter on the tips ,a very thin line. It looked great. My tutor said when i was at college that i was good at polish application , hope she wasnt just saying that lol ,she got me to help the other girls.I hope i stay good lol.xxxx

 

[kirsty_nails]

As a newbie to nails I am surprisingly finding do a good polish job really quite difficult. It is surprising how difficult I find to do others nail polish when I feel doing my own fairly easy. If there was a nail polish course I would definatly be on it!!!! x

 

[geeg]

Can I ask a question please Gigi? In your expert opinion, how long do you think a good polish job should take? The reason I ask is this. Having recently been there myself, colleges are teaching students to file, tend to cuticles, massage and polish (4 coats, base x2 colour & top coat) and finish with treatment oil in 30 minutes. This is also what salons expect their staff to do.

It is called a standard manicure (not even an express manicure) and I personally don't agree with it. I refuse to offer it to my clients, but if this is what the colleges are pushing, then it is not suprising some newbies to the industry are not competent at doing a lasting job.

Well speaking for myself, I would say a salon polish of one solid colour at the end of the enhancement service would take me 10 minutes for 4 coats.

For a perfect French it would tkae me 15 ... and I mean perfect.

To include a standard manicure I would say 45 for me or even 50 to do the job that I would consider a good standard. Express would be a tidy and polish and take 25-30 minutes for me. No soak and no massage.

 

[~Emmsybabes~]

I will fully hold my hands up and say I am not very good at polishing nails,
I would LOVE to be, when I see some of the beautifully polished nails in magazines etc...I'd love to do that.
I love looking through the CND look book at all the nails in there...
Maybe some good courses would be a good idea, I have never been 'trained' to polish nails as such, just did it on my college course.
It is possibly lack of practice with me,
I haven't polished many nails since I qualified, and often when I do my own I end up removing it after a few minutes as it look pants!

If it could produce designs for clients that are more affordable for them and easier to remove for them I think a course to brush up skills on polishing would be a great investment to make,
Lots of people can't afford nail enhancements or just can't wear them due to work commitments or they like 'fancy' designs done using l+p, but dont want to be stuck with something for a number of weeks, etc....
So yeah I would love to be better at polishing xxx

:hug:

 

[Chameleon]

Thank you for a post like this...there is such an art form to painting,and some people do not realise this......there is nothing better than a professional paint than a "DIY" and this is why clients return again and again...

I,adore painting...i had a grandmother who always had painted nails,and she always encouraged this on me at such a young age...to my father's horror:lol:....her saying was "a woman feels like a woman with painted nails and stiletto heels!":green:

I have come across women and girls for trade tests who have stumbled on a paint...i think it is due to various factors,and you just have to keep practising for some...others caqn just do it naturally....whatever the outcome eventually you CAN become a cultivated painter when you let the frustrations subside....i always tell my husband i may not know how to boil an egg but i give a wicked manicure and polish...

 

[pure]

Last month my rep was telling me about some new coloured gels they were promoting, and was I interested. No, I said, why would I want coloured gels when my polish lasts at least 2-3 weeks anyway, and longer on a natural overlay?!

I love polishing, and the darker the better because you then get the real 'wow' reaction from the client because they couldn't in a million years get such a good finish. Pedicure colours have to be removed or grown out because they won't budge, even a French. But then I've been perfecting my technique since I was about 10.:lol::lol:

 

[marioned]

I've never been taught polishing on any of the courses I've been on :irked: Must see how I can remedy this.

Anyway, I've got a lovely pillar box red colour on my nails which i did a couple of weeks ago on top of a clear gel nno. As I find it really difficult to polish my own nails (you should see my right hand when I've done it!) I decided to use the Nailfresh trick, which I'd read about on one of Geeg's previous posts.

I dug out a brush with a lovely sloped flat edge out of my new set of art brushes. I started with my left hand to see how it went, and as I did the first nail I thought "This is fantastic". I could cut in so well and it left a wonderful line and removed the splodges. I did the second, which worked well, the third was a bit harder and by the fourth I wasn't really having much success. I couldn't work out why it had worked so well at the start and now I couldn't manage it at all, until I looked at the brush and realised the hairs had melted! Oops, guess it doesn't work well with the synthetic hairs on that bush! LOL

 

[Cathie!]

I was thinking this week about how I could increase my manicure client base as I don't have many manicure/polished nail clients.

In the competitions I have entered, my scores were poor for polishing.

I have never really been taught on any of the courses I have been on, how to polish nails, so am self taught, or from what I have read on tuts here really.

I do enjoy giving a good manicure but I have found that clients think they can wander off straight away without leaving adequate drying time. I always get them to pay before polishing and offer a cuppa after, but not all take up on that. I allow 1 hour for a full manicure with polish.

 

[Lilyme]

This is the service that i do the most...and i love it...

 

[Prionace]

Not to brag, but i loooove polishing. I love doing french with polish, i love polishing with red and i love when my clients come back and tell me "Everyone asked me if my nails had gel!"
I started doing gel before i started doing regular manicures, and i think that rose the bar a bit higher in my standards. At first i struggled a bit because i wanted to achive that flawless look i was already getting with gel.
To me the only downsides on manicures are the drying time, breakages, and less then perfect nails...

 

[JesseDavidNailDesign]

I think polish is the most important part of any nail service.
I was thinking the same thing when I saw a tutorial on gel pedicures. Who is having problems keeping their pedicure ? Mine stays on for months. And no UV Lamp required!

I can understand how people working with acrylic would want their own designs to be tougher with a clear overlay.

I'm sure product companies are doing well off this trend!

 

[Mrs.Clooney]

Well speaking for myself, I would say a salon polish of one solid colour at the end of the enhancement service would take me 10 minutes for 4 coats.

For a perfect French it would tkae me 15 ... and I mean perfect.

To include a standard manicure I would say 45 for me or even 50 to do the job that I would consider a good standard. Express would be a tidy and polish and take 25-30 minutes for me. No soak and no massage.

Thank you, I am relieved to hear this. I must admit to getting extremely annoyed at being pushed to push out 30 minute standard Manicures in 30 minutes which the clients were paying for using gloopy, tacky rubbish polish!

 

[fifitrix]

I do love to polish too, there are a few of my clients that love it, I must admit, I love painting on dark colours, the wow factor is amazing.

I think some clients get so fixated on pink and white that they forget how fab a colour can look on their nails, and is isn't until you do their toe nails that they say, oh can I have that on my fingers too.

I have to say I used to dread french manicures but have overcome that now! :lol:

 

[geeg]

Well one way to sell a polish service or indeed to sell polish is to WEAR polish!!

I know, I know, as you all say, "But my polish gest wrecked when I am working with solvents and files!" But it doesn't have to with a little care.

I can remember the days when I polished every single day to keep my nails looking perfect for working in the salon.

Being successful at work requires ..... WORK on your part and attention to detail. It requires you to go home at the end of the day and think of what you are going to promote and how you are going to promote it.Try it for a week and see how much polish you sell.

We used to sell on average in my salon 20 bottles of polish per week. That was an extra 60.00 per week return on sales which equals and extra 3000.00 per year for doing nothing more than showing off what you have to offer. That doesn't begin to reflect our retail sales when you add in Solar Oil and Scentsations lotions and shower gels, polish remover, files and buffers, bse and top coats etc etc.

Don't ignore the art of doing a perfect professional polish it can gain you loads of extra business and extra revenue ... doesn't cost you much in time to do and you can offer lots of extra things with polish.

If applied correctly, polish doesn't have to take hours and hours to dry. WE had the odd clients who were serial smudgers but not many (especially as we charged them extra to fix it if they sudged it) and we knew how to fix smudges FAST without having to redo the whole polish ... we taught our clients how to do it too and also to apply just one coat of Super Shiney top coat per week between appointments to keep their polish looking 'new' for 3 weeks. They loved it.

 

[Eni]

Hi Geeg,

Yes ma'am. I can do some awesome things with polish, course back then when I trained it was required as you said, we didn't have colored acrylic polymer.

Aside: Cherries in the Snow was my mothers fave polish and is one of mine. Hell my first car was that colour....

Back to Topic: I still like to do funky polish (I prefer it actually) and especially now with the really good topcoats, it can last two weeks easily. I also like the versatility of polish. Luckily for me, where I am, polish is popular.

Now I'm wondering how many people were taught how to polish for visual effect (ie. leaving the tiniest margin on the sidewalls polish free or leave a tiny margin at the free edge to alleviate chipping.

OK, I have to go find some geritol or something.....



Nancy

 

[geeg]

Hi Geeg,

Yes ma'am. I can do some awesome things with polish, course back then when I trained it was required as you said, we didn't have colored acrylic polymer.

Aside: Cherries in the Snow was my mothers fave polish and is one of mine. Hell my first car was that colour....

Back to Topic: I still like to do funky polish (I prefer it actually) and especially now with the really good topcoats, it can last two weeks easily. I also like the versatility of polish. Luckily for me, where I am, polish is popular.

Now I'm wondering how many people were taught how to polish for visual effect (ie. leaving the tiniest margin on the sidewalls polish free or leave a tiny margin at the free edge to alleviate chipping.

OK, I have to go find some geritol or something.....

Nancy

Hey Nancy ... the old dogs can teach a few tricks. I think I will write a class for polishing. I do have a tutorial on here http://www.salongeek.com/nail-finishing-maintenance/11972-precision-polishing.html but there are so many tricks to teach that I think I can get a class out of it for a Monday mentoring session later on this year.

I see so many technicians taking so much time to do things with coloured powders that you and I can do in 10 minutes with polish PLUS you can get rid of it in a heartbeat when you want to and start again with something different. I just can't see the appeal in coloured tips done in L&P when it is so easy with polish.

 

[sian1979]

i have never been taught how to do a good polish...even though i asked in my manicure class...my only instruction has been from nail class manual and i have to say i dont think i am that bad ....but when i see competition nails painted red...and they have been done perfect i really admire them and quite envious. I am going to try and take a picture today of one i did yesterday....and you can critique it for me as not quite sure where i am going wrong.
I love the CND website for all the step by steps on how to get lots and lots of different looks and effects......

 

[Vetty]

I can polish well enough that I feel comfortable charging for a manicure as a service, but I don't think I do a killer polish job...... I do tidy up with Nailfresh and I love polishing but, like Cathie, I don't do many manicures.

I would love to improve my polishing that bit more.

 

[adelekeegan1]

The bulk of my business is manis and pedis so polishing is an important part of my work.

I taught myself from Gigi's tutorial and my clients are happy but I don't remember the last time I painted a french.

 

[Pink Pink Pink]

I was just thinking about this last night. I do work for my local council within the Healthy Liveng Centre, offering nail paints to the women that come to the events. (Last night was salsa evening)

Every one of them comment on how lovely and neat it is and you can tell the diference getting a professional to polish and "they can never get it to look like that". Colour depth etc...

It made me realise how skilled it was. I think I'm a good at polishing (not excellent - yet!) and actually enjoy doing dark colours and french polishes - it is an artform!

*makes note to practice more*

Brill thread.