I am one of those people who did the 1 day training courses for various different aspects such as manicure, pedicure, gel polish, soak of gel and acrylics.
I did these courses because as a single parent with a mortgage I was looking for a second income which I could potentially turn into a business, allowing me to reduce my time in the teaching profession which I have been in for 10 years. I was not in a position to leave my job in order to pursue a full time qualification.
It was my assumption that because the courses are beauty guild accredited and allow you to gain insurance that they must surely be adequate and I felt that with a science degree already I would be in a good position to understand the theory. I knew that I would need a lot of practise but believed that I would gain the necessary basic skills to be able to build up to being "good at nails".
I, like others whom I have spoken to, am disappointed with the training I received. As I said, I went into it fully believing that it must be learnable in a 1 day course otherwise there wouldn't be so many people offering them.
A lot of the basic science they described was wrong (e.g. My trainer said that athletes foot was bacterial and that eczema was contagious) and they did not teach us anything regarding natural nail shape and curve and many other things that I only discovered I needed to know through hours of textbook and salon geek reading.
During the training, the trainer often left the room and barely watched what we did. We were told that we just needed to practise when we left.
I have written this post because I understand the frustrations of those of you who have spent years and hundreds of hours training (I feel the same about non-qualified teachers!) but please remember that we took these courses in good faith, believing that they would be a stepping stone into a new career when we were not in a position to undertake a full time course.
I now feel quite stuck with regards to nails. I would love to do a level 2 or 3 course but none are offered as evening courses. I am quite confident with my Shellac application but I am saving to do the CND course. I struggle with brisa lite and more so with acrylic because of issues with tips, blending and shaping so need more/retraining with these too.
I too am annoyed.com by the (lack of) training I received.