I'm wondering ................

Are we loosing the art of good nail polishing? Yes good old fashioned beautiful professional polishing?

Judging at the recent show at Excell I have to say the polish jobs were pretty abysmal.

There was a time when a perfect polish job was an art form. Still is in my opinion. Should be part of every nail tech's repertoire .. perfect polishing. I mean Revlon used to offer a whole course on polishing alone!

We used to do amazing coloured French tips by applying a perfect application of polish!! Think of that! And it lasted 2-3 weeks if the client just added a coat of top coat Super shiney once a week. No permanent coloured powders or glitter tips to remove when the client got sick of them; we did it with polish and it looked and lasted superbly well. We didn't have to do it with gel and then file it all off later just removed with Acetone and a cotton pad. So ..... are we making things too complicated these days and too expensive? With polish these things are so easy and so quick.

Another thing we did was to layer different colours to create another colour altogether. I used to know every CND collour and what to layer over what to get what!!

So my question is I guess, do you do this anymore? And if not, should we be getting back to it? Or is it just another sign of the times that women haven't even got the time to wait for their polish to set?

Well I love polishing but I do hate waiting for it to dry...I did mine the other night and it was hours before it was fully set and I never ever manage to not smudge one.

I do love the look of a professionally applied polish that is so perfectly neat around the edges with the lil tiny margin all the way round and a super glossy finish...I still haven't manage to perfect this look yet...but I keep trying and they are getting better but still a few probs, mainly getting the margin really really neat (I use a small brush with scrubfresh to go round but dont think the brush im using is quite small enough actually) and the ones I did the other night have all chipped off on the very edge even tho I capped it all im going to re-do tonight!

Could you do a 'monday mentoring' class on it Gigi? I would come to that hint hint

I honestly think that if someone hasn't allowed the time in their appointment for the polish to set they might as well not bother...do not let them escape before they are dry.....even use brute force if you have to!!

not all of us hopefully !

YOU WON DIDN'T YOU??? That should answer your question.

'Proper Polishing' is what makes a manicure look professional, it's a walking advert for your business. My clients always comment on how long their enamel lasts when they have a manicure. If and when I get my hands on some students I will be making it my mission to ensure they don't leave college without being able to apply it correctly.

Sarah x

I have a couple of regular clients who love to have polish ( I love applying polish I get great satisfaction from my application and the compliments clients give me "they can never get it like that"), One client comes every Friday to have hers changed to co-ordinate with her Saturday night out outfit.I do also do coloured french polish as a few of my clients get fed up or like to change the colour on a regular basis and cant be doing with the filing time and extra cost so dont like to have coloured acrylic. Cant say I know or was taught anything about layering polish will have to research that one.

Funny you should bring this up now Geeg, because I'm having a bit of a polish 'drive' at the moment.
My main reason was thinking how I could get over my overexposure issues and I thought polish and nail art would be a way of being to give that something different with out having to work exessivly with l&p designs.

I've found that those that have converted are enjoying having a natural l&p (as opposed to french white or coloured l&p) and being able to ring the changes more often with a polish design.

A few come in every week for a polish, not because it hasn't lasted but because they just want a change.

Less money in one sitting for the client but more weekly money in my till

I love using polish and get a lot of satisfaction from it and I'd like to think I'm preety good at polishing but when I look at pictures in magazines etc I feel like such an amateur.... I'm allways striving for perfection though

I remember when i done my manicure and pedicure training, we spent the first 4 weeks just practising nail polishing

many in class failed their practical assessments because their polishing skills were not up to scratch!

funny you say that geeg i had a client last week who got a gel overlay on her fingers and she wanted a french polish on her toes, and she didnt want to wait for them to dry, i put them under the fan in my uv lamp but it wasnt quick enough, so she asked me to get my hairdryer, i started laughing but she said she used to get her last nail tech to do this as she didnt want to wait, so i got the hairdryer lol.. then after two seconds she said they are surely dry now and slipped her foot into her flipflop and destroyed the nails so i had to do them again.. if she had just given it a minute or two the first time they would of been done alot quicker lol..

i have to admit tho i am not the best at the french polish i would love to do a course on polishing i think it would be great..

I'm SO glad I had Amanda Fontannarosa teach me (have I spelt that right?!). I get so many compliments on my polish!
She showed me the nailfresh trick too and deep colours hold no fear for me now!

What's the nailfresh trick?

Meridenx

i enjoyed my manicure course more than the artificial nails course ive jsut completed, and LOVE polishing,

i've even resorted to painting my nails dark colours with nail art on my ring finger, coz everytone in my family/friends wants L&p and no one will let me paint there nails!

i love the look of neatly polished nails and cant stand to see some of the nails you see on the internet where they have polished they're skin!

at the mo, as we're having to wear red in college tommorrow for our hair client as its comic relief, so i have black nails while my ringfinger is black with a red dip and a little red nose!

I think Jessica still do a nail painting masterclass. I agree that the ability to do a good job is becoming rare. Most of the work experience girls I take on say they've passed their manicure section but were never told how to apply polish, imagine that!

When I was taught we spent hours & hours painting full sets & then had to go to the tutor who would examine them under a magni-lamp to check them. Until you could consistently paint to a high standard with no flaws you didn't pass - took me months!

I think they rush through it now as they have so many other things to cover in the courses, but really the colleges should be making sure they can manage the cornerstones of the trade before adding superfluous subjects into courses.