Chickafish
Well-Known Member
After reading numerous posts about all the problems newly qualified techs face, I'm just wondering if nail courses are teaching enough, and are aspiring nail techs leaving each lesson feeling confident enough in their skills? I've seen 1-2 day courses for manis and pedis, l&p, gels, ect, and I can't imagine learning all that in 1-2 days unless I've already had some sort of nail tech background and was just after refresher courses.
Looking back at my nail training school, which consisted of both classroom and practical studies, it took some people almost a year to pass. There's so much that needs practice that a 1-2 day course couldn't possibly cover everything. Maybe someone can answer these questions because I didn't take a 1-2 day course and I'm curious.
- How thorough are they with teaching the anatomy of the hands and feet, diseases, disorders, and conditions?
- Are they teaching proper nail prep? Do they teach dry prep for enhancement courses or do they just assume you'd already know?
- How much of cuticle work do they cover? Do they show proper ways to hold a nipper? Do they explain exactly what a cuticle is (dead skin, live tissue), and when a tech should push back and when a tech should nip? And also WHAT a tech should nip?
- Are techs leaving these courses masters of nail polishing? Polishing nails is pretty much like learning the alphabet. You need to learn the alphabet before you read. You need to learn how to correctly polish a nail before you learn any other nail enhancement.
- What about French manicure? What method are they teaching for doing a French/American manicure? I think I must've spent 2 weeks trying to master the perfect smile line. Do they teach about ratio? (I think it's so tacky and unnatural when people have like half pink and half white. That's way too much white! But does the tech know that?)
- Are techs being taugh how to properly use and manuever their implements? Are they showing how to hold a bottle of nail polish when polishing a nail? Are they showing how to anchor the polishing hand so you're not all shakey when polishing? What about how to hold a file?
- How much do techs leave these courses knowing about file control? How's thier shaping? How's their buffing? Do they know the difference between filing off too much and not enough?
- How familiar with the products used are techs who've taken these courses? We use quite a number of products just for a basic manicure. Do they get into detail of what each bottle is and it's role in a treatment? Or do they just say "use this for this."
- In enhancement courses, to they show you both sculpting with form and with tips? Or is it just one or the other? Do they show proper tip/form fitting?
- When it comes to sculpting (l&p and gel), do they only teach only 1 method of application? I was fortunate enough to learn both regular and reverse, and I thought that was the norm until I saw a few posts where some were just discovering the reverse application on their own. Shouldn't they teach both methods and leave it to the student to pick up whichever suits them best insteading of leaving techs to wonder whether this "new" method is acceptable? The same applies to regular applications. I know they teach the 3-ball method with acrylics(which I don't use), but wouldn't it be easier to teach different ways of application and just tell techs what they're trying to achieve (ie. how much space should be between the cuticle/sidewalls and product, how thick each zone should be especially the apex in zone 2)?
- With enhancement courses, do they go over the issue of nails popping off, cracking and lifting? Surely, they should go over the worst case scenarios so techs know what should be done to avoid them from happening and how to fix if it does happen?
- Do they cover the importance of dialogue? We could be the best of techs, but what good are we if we can't even properly handle problems that arise? When working with people, we're all bound to run into people that will push our buttons to the point where we lose our cool, but are techs prepared for that, or do they just handle it? Lashing out and snapping is not always the option.
I'm sure most of you have taken excellent courses and learned loads from them, but I'm just curious how some of these courses operate (particularly the lesser known neighborhood courses). With anything that logically would take some time time and practice to master, surely a day or 2 couldn't be enough? (Sorry for the long post. I ask a lot of questions when I'm curious.) :lol:
Looking back at my nail training school, which consisted of both classroom and practical studies, it took some people almost a year to pass. There's so much that needs practice that a 1-2 day course couldn't possibly cover everything. Maybe someone can answer these questions because I didn't take a 1-2 day course and I'm curious.
- How thorough are they with teaching the anatomy of the hands and feet, diseases, disorders, and conditions?
- Are they teaching proper nail prep? Do they teach dry prep for enhancement courses or do they just assume you'd already know?
- How much of cuticle work do they cover? Do they show proper ways to hold a nipper? Do they explain exactly what a cuticle is (dead skin, live tissue), and when a tech should push back and when a tech should nip? And also WHAT a tech should nip?
- Are techs leaving these courses masters of nail polishing? Polishing nails is pretty much like learning the alphabet. You need to learn the alphabet before you read. You need to learn how to correctly polish a nail before you learn any other nail enhancement.
- What about French manicure? What method are they teaching for doing a French/American manicure? I think I must've spent 2 weeks trying to master the perfect smile line. Do they teach about ratio? (I think it's so tacky and unnatural when people have like half pink and half white. That's way too much white! But does the tech know that?)
- Are techs being taugh how to properly use and manuever their implements? Are they showing how to hold a bottle of nail polish when polishing a nail? Are they showing how to anchor the polishing hand so you're not all shakey when polishing? What about how to hold a file?
- How much do techs leave these courses knowing about file control? How's thier shaping? How's their buffing? Do they know the difference between filing off too much and not enough?
- How familiar with the products used are techs who've taken these courses? We use quite a number of products just for a basic manicure. Do they get into detail of what each bottle is and it's role in a treatment? Or do they just say "use this for this."
- In enhancement courses, to they show you both sculpting with form and with tips? Or is it just one or the other? Do they show proper tip/form fitting?
- When it comes to sculpting (l&p and gel), do they only teach only 1 method of application? I was fortunate enough to learn both regular and reverse, and I thought that was the norm until I saw a few posts where some were just discovering the reverse application on their own. Shouldn't they teach both methods and leave it to the student to pick up whichever suits them best insteading of leaving techs to wonder whether this "new" method is acceptable? The same applies to regular applications. I know they teach the 3-ball method with acrylics(which I don't use), but wouldn't it be easier to teach different ways of application and just tell techs what they're trying to achieve (ie. how much space should be between the cuticle/sidewalls and product, how thick each zone should be especially the apex in zone 2)?
- With enhancement courses, do they go over the issue of nails popping off, cracking and lifting? Surely, they should go over the worst case scenarios so techs know what should be done to avoid them from happening and how to fix if it does happen?
- Do they cover the importance of dialogue? We could be the best of techs, but what good are we if we can't even properly handle problems that arise? When working with people, we're all bound to run into people that will push our buttons to the point where we lose our cool, but are techs prepared for that, or do they just handle it? Lashing out and snapping is not always the option.
I'm sure most of you have taken excellent courses and learned loads from them, but I'm just curious how some of these courses operate (particularly the lesser known neighborhood courses). With anything that logically would take some time time and practice to master, surely a day or 2 couldn't be enough? (Sorry for the long post. I ask a lot of questions when I'm curious.) :lol: