I used Facebook Marketplace when I was charging student prices, I was busier than I could even manage from just that. I advertised it as "looking for models to practice on", and explained i was a student.
hi im new to salon geek but have been coming here quite frequently to review products. Im very interested in this question since i have recently qualified as a nail tech with an NVQ 2. Did you go mobile whilst charging student prices or did clients come to you. Id like to charge student prices until i feel 100% confident that the nails will stay on and are looking great and of course getting my fileing times down. Any suggestions will be great. I d rather not have people come to my home.
I am new myself but will try to share some of my experience, hoping it will help ^_^
I was not interested in being mobile during my training period, so I used my spare room at home, which I decorated and made into a little nail studio. I also live in the countryside, roughly 15 min drive (no public transport here) from town, so I was initially worried that would put people off. but it didn't in (my case.) I am lucky that the spare room isn't connected to the living room and kitchen. I can close off those areas thankfully. I did 2 sets of nails per day during that period just to get as much practice in as possible. I hate driving around and finding my way, and I didn't like the idea of having to "make do" with someone's kitchen table or insufficient lighting, so for me I felt I had to have my own permanent space to carry out the work. If you don't want people coming home to you, then you will have to be mobile though, but I suppose it can be finicky with packing and unpacking the equipment several times a day. It's now over 4 months since I qualified and I still take ages for new set and refill, still hoping my timings will reduce further eventually, but the worst thing to do is stress. You'll just create more work for yourself by stressing, and you might end up resenting the work (some people love stress and work best that way, so I'm not saying everyone is like that, but just beware of it).
As for confidence, you will gain confidence in time, and the nails you do will usually stay on and not cause issues as long as you do good prep and the clients follow aftercare advice. However...every client is different, and they have differnet nails, lifestyles and some have health issues. You will of course also get clients who will insist they just "Popped off", even though you can clearly see they were ripped off or bitten
I remind them that every time this happens (when they are careless or pick/bite), the nail will get weaker and weaker. Not only will it be more prone to heat spikes ( gel) , but the product will adhere even worse, and it'll be a viscious cycle repeating itself. They seem to understand this, and they work with me on how we both can make sure the nails not only stays on looking nice for weeks with no lifting, but preserving the health of their natural nails too. Because the health of the natural nail is what is most important, more important than making a set of nails stay on for 10 years... some NSS salons (or just bad/inexperienced nail techs) will sometimes wreck your nails by over filing it to make their product adhere and stay on for 8 + weeks, and unfortunately some clients think this is absolutely normal.
They SHOULD come back once a month for a fill/rebalance, not just because of growth but because lifting can sometimes occur and moisture can get trapped and needs sorting out. They shouldn't be waltzing in after 2-3 months with these horrid lumps that are still barely attached to their extremities demanding a "fill please". That's just taking the piss, regardless of how proud they are of the staying power of the nails
