Bluffers, dare I say fakes?

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I don't see the reason why people would even want to come on here and waste their time if they don't take their work seriously & don't want to provide a professional service.

This site has been in-valuable to me as I'm starting up my home based business, and everyone has been so helpful. Never had my own business so it's a bit scary going out in the big works.

I trained a few years ago but constantly updated my training & kept up to date with products etc.
Practised and practised, now ready to hit the road.
 
I have thought the same for some time about the basic questions people ask. Also, well from when I started training really I have noticed how easy it is for 'just anyone' to buy products, one salon wholesalers near me doesn't even ask if you have any qualifications! They dont by any means stock top end products but even so these procducts (nails and hair) contain dangerous chemicals, and they are selling them to anyone that walks in there.
People seem to think they can watch a video on youtube and complete these treatments.
Even on the internet I think only 3 websites have ever asked for proof of my quilifications before I can have access. It is worrying and an insult really to all of us who have put time, effort, heart and money into training.
I just did a little search on ebay to see and there are pages and pages of fake shellac, and other cheap and nasty nail stuff and I dare say it must be the same for hair.
 
I don't see the reason why people would even want to come on here and waste their time if they don't take their work seriously & don't want to provide a professional service.
They are not wasting their time, they are here to learn and learn for free, leeching off people, then set up in a garage (sorry you guys call them greenhouses, lofts, you know those places in the roof with glass on the top), however you glamourise it (i'm too Aussie for terminology), but if you give them the information ........ aaaaah just remembered "conservatory", is that like a lav with a glass roof where you can observe the stars at night:)

Back to my thoughts, .......if you give them the info, they will set up their own glass topped lav at half your price (just look at the posts about said person up the road at half the price), I really think people have to prove themselves in some manner before all and sunder give them advice.

I know it's difficult, but some kind of "information protocol" has to be observed before "hands up teacher, I know the answer to that" information is given freely.
Kinda like where do I get this from ? Well why not ask you current supplier, DOH, where do I get my files from? (perhaps your current supplier) DOH.

We are not answering Homer Simpson, we are supposed to be professionals, with some kind of basic knowledge (even newbees are supposed to have some kind of basic knowledge), don't direct them to suppliers that will supply anyone, there has to be a stop point .... the person you help today, maybe the person that sets up shop next to you tomorrow ...... then you will be in here complaining about Sweaty Betty has opened 2 doors up, what do I do?

And so the circle goes around, were you the "hero" that gave "Sweaty Betty" the info that allowed her to be your newest/latest competition to complain about?
 
My area seems to be rife with Have a go DIY queens at the moment. I was on my way back from a client yesterday and passed ( within a 5 mile journey) 6, yes 6 cars with really horrible tiny free from Vistaprint car magnets advertising nails, spray tans, hairdressing and more nails and nails again and Spray tans. They were so little that you could not read the name or number and I do wonder if their vehicle insurances actually know that they are using these vehicles as a form of business advertising etc. I had a leaflet drop on my doorstep when I came home from a local " beauticians" offering Gel Polish and/or spray tan. At least she was not stupidly cheap , but the Grammar and spelling was not too great. The leaflet girl also did not look like she was selling the "dream" ( I checked my CCTV to be nosey about the competition)

By the way, not a single car with these adverts on looked like there was a beautician driving. No make-up, hair tatty and messy and defenitely no sign of a tunic. No professional look about them at all. Even if I could have taken their name and number I would not have wanted to.

Oh dear I am sounding a bit harsh now but I was SO disappointed to see that no care was taken at all.I can not understand why on earth you would let your business down at the last hurdle by illegible advertising and amateurish leaflets if you have spent time and money on getting everything else right. All I can surmise is that they more than likely have never spent anything on their businesses apart from Vistaprint Postage. LOL

Don't get me wrong, I have used Vista Print in the past and have loved my products I have ordered, but have always upgraded to the Larger car magnet X2, or the Premium cards rather than the basic ones and so on. First impressions do count and I am not willing to waste my training, experience and skills by looking like an amateur to prospective clients.

All the time I was wondering what their SG names were or would be if they had found us.:(
 
Back to your initial post, I've become a bit jaded/suspicious myself. I see the redunancy of the thread titles and wonder, "From whom are these people getting their training?! They don't know sh*t!" Then it dawns on me that they may not really be in training at all...they're probably DIYers posing as professionals and quite frankly that burns my bisquits! I won't waste my time.

As far as people in training, I don't mind helping them because I know everyone learns differently and a student may have had the misfortune of being paired with an instructor that doesn't meet their specific learning needs.

For me, I'm a visual learner. My nail instructor was a lecturer and didn't provide any visual representation of what we were supposed to be learning. For nail artists, that's a must. She did not meet my needs.

I really could have benefited from the kind and patient guidance of the nail pros on SG had it been around back in the day.
 
i suppose we could go round and round in circles all day ..

'Mary up the road is doing shellac for a fiver and i know a girl on FB who advertises tan and i know she isn't qualified'....really who gives a crap.

....it's nothing to do with me who or what they're doing ....i don't care...i have my own business to run.

but i do agree with Carl that we should be more discerning with the advice we give on here.

point taken .. thank you.
 
They are not wasting their time, they are here to learn and learn for free, leeching off people, then set up in a garage (sorry you guys call them greenhouses, lofts, you know those places in the roof with glass on the top), however you glamourise it (i'm too Aussie for terminology), but if you give them the information ........ aaaaah just remembered "conservatory", is that like a lav with a glass roof where you can observe the stars at night:)

Back to my thoughts, .......if you give them the info, they will set up their own glass topped lav at half your price (just look at the posts about said person up the road at half the price), I really think people have to prove themselves in some manner before all and sunder give them advice.

I know it's difficult, but some kind of "information protocol" has to be observed before "hands up teacher, I know the answer to that" information is given freely.
Kinda like where do I get this from ? Well why not ask you current supplier, DOH, where do I get my files from? (perhaps your current supplier) DOH.

We are not answering Homer Simpson, we are supposed to be professionals, with some kind of basic knowledge (even newbees are supposed to have some kind of basic knowledge), don't direct them to suppliers that will supply anyone, there has to be a stop point .... the person you help today, maybe the person that sets up shop next to you tomorrow ...... then you will be in here complaining about Sweaty Betty has opened 2 doors up, what do I do?

And so the circle goes around, were you the "hero" that gave "Sweaty Betty" the info that allowed her to be your newest/latest competition to complain about?

hahaha, Mr Nailzoo you do crack me up! :D Ive got one of those lavs with a glass roof where you can observe the 'overcast' sky at night (heh I live in the UK) I use it as my home salon, but its quite a posh glass walled lav, it has its own customer entrance and everything! :lol:
 
I would just like to say, as a non professional, I admire your guys knowledge, persistence and patience a LOT.

I do read like a junky here just to fill myself up with information, like a sponge, until I can afford the proper training.
What sometimes 'irks' me in some of the questions as the people the op talks about, is that even I, after all the researching and reading I did here, know some of the most obvious answers.

Before I made my account here and started reading here, I wanted to become an e bay-product fumbler to make money to get proper training (how backwards that idea was)
Anyhow, reading all of your professional answers, warnings and soaking up all this info you all have made me realize how utterly stupid and potentially dangerous my plan was.

You can't save them all,
but I for one am very grateful I could read the professional section and realize there was so much more to learn then i thought, and that there is really only one way to achieve my goal.. save up and get a good training, before I even get near professional products.
 
LOVE the term 'ebay product fumbler' :lol::lol:

Like an NSS perhaps we could have a new category: EPF :?:

(great thread Nailzoo BTW)
 
I came on here for the first time a few months ago just before I started training on the CND complete and I have made great friends and have listened to and taken heed of fantastic advice that the professionals give for free and at their own time too and I will always be grateful.

I am a member of a group on fb, it is made up of people on the same course as me, we started at similar times, met on sg, but in different parts of the country...from Scotland to Bournemouth. I wasn't on fb until I met them. We go on fb and something is posted everyday...whether pictures or asking opinions or advice. We are all at different stages from having other jobs and working as a technician part-time, owning salons, being mobile or working in salons. I go full time with my business 'In The Buff' in January. Some of us have done other things too such as tanning, eyelashes etc. We encourage each other , especially when members are feeling down and generally support one another. By it being secret, it means our normal fb pages aren't filled with nail problems, issues, moans, pictures of nails needing critiques (which most friends who aren't nail techs would find incredibly boring). Also, regular friends don't need to know issues I'm having, they just need to see the pics I share with them that look good. It is just for us.

It is not a substitute for professional advice...for that we come on here or go to our amazing e/a's. I'm in touch with my e/a regularly even though I have completed the course, she is a real support to me. Sometimes though, on SG, we may ask basic questions especially when we start to get a bit technical and need to go back to basics. I realise there are non-professionals, but please also realise that I've had good training but I don't know everything and with the help of sites like this and the professionals that I respect wholeheartedly, I will be learning for the rest of my career, as a professional nail technician :hug: xx
 
Great thread Carl.

I will admit, in recent times there has been more times than not, that I have read a new post and said to myself "there is no way you have had the training you say you have if you are asking a basic question like that"
So I simply do not answer.

There are also times when I have answered a post then kicked myself for doing so, as it becomes apparent as the thread goes on that the poster is a backyardie.

Maybe we all just have to be more careful as to how and what we answer and not let the urge to help someone overtake our common sense.

I do feel that part of the problem is some of the training institutes (if you want to call them that). Some of the courses they offer now a days are terrible but because in many countries (like our own) our industry is not regulated and any Jo Blo can start offering dodgy training, the 'well below standard of training' will continue and we will continue to see newly trained techs who know not much more than before they went into training.
 
I'm not sure if it's just me, but there seems to be some very basic questions being asked ........

Questions so basic that these "apparent" techs can not possibly be undertaking any kind of training (and if they are, they are being trained by a less that scrupulous tutor).

Some peeps post in here, when clearly they should be asking their current tutor (if they exist).

I'm all for helping someone out that is willing to put in some effort (even if it's a crappy course), but looking at some posts, I feel that I'm helping to educate some Ebay buyers wanting to take the cheap way out and using Salongeek to help them along their way.

Maybe it's just me, but some of the questions asked would be easily answered on day one or 2 of any half decent nail course.

Is there any way of policing this ? and how do you feel about educating others that are just seeking advice for free, buying cheap products, no education (except for what they have learned in Salongeek) then set up (perhaps in your neighborhood) and create another half price tech, doing half cocked nails.

Someone had to say it (guess it's gonna be me), but I bet some of you were thinking it .... your thoughts please


Completely thinking it!! Glad you brought it up.
 
People who haven't done the training bug the life out of me but if people had tutors like some of mine I'm not surprised they are asking about supplies etc. I didn't have a clue so I asked one of my tutors what was the best in her opinion and she wouldn't tell me! She said "please don't take my clients" it's pathetic! That was my level 2 at college. I wish I had found salon geek before I went ahead and did some of my product training. I managed to go right through college without even hearing about CND.
Things have changed a lot in the last 18 months though and I've a few ex clients doing their own nails with CND products from fleebay!
Anyway never mind. Just wanted to say I wish I had found SG a long time ago and you've all helped me a lot.
 
Read my mind! I was just thinking about the topic of this thread the other day.
 
I am a "newbie geek" on here but I am not new to nails, I have been doing nails for 4 years and some of the questions asked on here??? Well it seemed to me that there were alot of DIY wanting answering so that they could get by without all the necessary school and trainning to become a nail tech... thanks Carl for this thread!!
 
I am VTCT qualified, level 2 beauty, level 2 nails, and level 3 massage. This year i enrolled on VTCT sports massage and reflexology. I have dropped out of both of my courses this year, because although i realise that you do have to put in a lot of hours outside of college, i found all of my courses to fail my educational needs.
i could easily compare them to long distance learning courses. because the idea of teaching A&P is to hand out homework, and get you to complete it in class! Its badly written, full of spelling mistakes, and often my answers have been crossed as wrong, scribbled out , then ticked as correct. last year we sat a written exam, the ones that needed to resit were given a copy to memorise, and then sat the same exam on a pc.
This year our Sports massage was great at teaching A&P, but failed us on practical- she quickly showed us a new area to massage, then rather than walk around to ensure everybody was doing the moves correctly and over seeing, she spent the rest of the time being massaged herself!!
reflexology gave me a written warning, because we were to do the treatment then fill out the consultation form in our lunch hour. I dared to speak and say i thought that was bad practice as we are continually told the importance for having informed consent before you carry out any treatment. I told her to stick her written warning along with her course up her nose and blow it out of her arse!!
Nails- our tutor showed us on 1 nail! it wasn't a great example! i am a qualified level 2 nail technician, yet i was only shown how to do acrylics with nail tips, and nail art. we didn't do pink and white, we didn't do sculpts. we were not really shown how to balance and how to infill. but i was qualified and could go out there and charge and do nails. i do them, but i don't charge what i should- not because i want to undercut others, or because im not qualified, but because i don't feel my work is good enough to warrant charging any more! and i realise a lot is keep practicing, putting in the work.
sometimes i just think, though valid points have been made, and though there may be unqualified people coming on asking silly questions, there could also be people that are qualified and ask silly questions because their college failed them, because newly qualified therapists, can easily become tutors, they can not answer some questions, because they do not know themselves!
Because some awarding bodies are failing at ensuring their educators actually really educate!
i plan on putting in an official complaint with VTCT highlighting all my concerns, and i will retrain in reflexology, with itec.
No question in my opinion is silly, and people should not be put off of posting what they fear may be a silly question if it helps them learn. xx
 
I am VTCT qualified, level 2 beauty, level 2 nails, and level 3 massage. This year i enrolled on VTCT sports massage and reflexology. I have dropped out of both of my courses this year, because although i realise that you do have to put in a lot of hours outside of college, i found all of my courses to fail my educational needs.
i could easily compare them to long distance learning courses. because the idea of teaching A&P is to hand out homework, and get you to complete it in class! Its badly written, full of spelling mistakes, and often my answers have been crossed as wrong, scribbled out , then ticked as correct. last year we sat a written exam, the ones that needed to resit were given a copy to memorise, and then sat the same exam on a pc.
This year our Sports massage was great at teaching A&P, but failed us on practical- she quickly showed us a new area to massage, then rather than walk around to ensure everybody was doing the moves correctly and over seeing, she spent the rest of the time being massaged herself!!
reflexology gave me a written warning, because we were to do the treatment then fill out the consultation form in our lunch hour. I dared to speak and say i thought that was bad practice as we are continually told the importance for having informed consent before you carry out any treatment. I told her to stick her written warning along with her course up her nose and blow it out of her arse!!
Nails- our tutor showed us on 1 nail! it wasn't a great example! i am a qualified level 2 nail technician, yet i was only shown how to do acrylics with nail tips, and nail art. we didn't do pink and white, we didn't do sculpts. we were not really shown how to balance and how to infill. but i was qualified and could go out there and charge and do nails. i do them, but i don't charge what i should- not because i want to undercut others, or because im not qualified, but because i don't feel my work is good enough to warrant charging any more! and i realise a lot is keep practicing, putting in the work.
sometimes i just think, though valid points have been made, and though there may be unqualified people coming on asking silly questions, there could also be people that are qualified and ask silly questions because their college failed them, because newly qualified therapists, can easily become tutors, they can not answer some questions, because they do not know themselves!
Because some awarding bodies are failing at ensuring their educators actually really educate!
i plan on putting in an official complaint with VTCT highlighting all my concerns, and i will retrain in reflexology, with itec.
No question in my opinion is silly, and people should not be put off of posting what they fear may be a silly question if it helps them learn. xx

Good on you for telling them where to stick it, I would have done the same:)
You have said exactly what I was trying to say as well, the teaching institutes (if some of them can call themselves this) really need a kick up the butt and then closed down and then only leave the good ones standing.

I know here in Australia I had to hunt for a decent approved course and it wasn't the best but it wasn't the worst and then I went on to train one to one with NSI as this is my system of choice.
Luckily for me my tutor has come from a long career and worked with 2 other very popular and good brands (I won't mention them here).
The key is, making sure you never stop training to some degree.

Everybody had to start somewhere and it's usually at the bottom, the professional ones are the ones who continue to train to improve themselves at all times.
 
In an ideal world I, as a mod, would have everyone fill in their profile properly before being allowed to enter the site. This has been raised but it was decided that there would be no way that we would either be able to tell if people had put down fake qualifications and the time element is against us.

I totally agree that this site has non qualifieds posting and asking questions, but worse still it has professionals who suspect this answering their queries.

I am also not totally comfortable with the number of tutorials on You Tube, I don't really see the difference between that and answering questions on here.

The fact is that without qualifications they can't obtain insurance so most of them do go on to either gaining those qualifications or dropping off the edge, not many carry on with no proper training.

Best, as Gigi has said, just put our heads down and concentrate on building our own businesses and skills, no one can take your clients from you if they don't want to go.:cool:
 
Let's bump this. Lots of very iffy questions being asked on here in the last few days since Carl posted this. :|

Thanks for posting this by the way. I 100% agree.
 
Let's bump this. Lots of very iffy questions being asked on here in the last few days since Carl posted this. :|

Thanks for posting this by the way. I 100% agree.

:DNot just in the last few days they are being asked but all the time.

As a mod on another forum (not nail related) I know that it is just impossible to police members qualifications and the amount of time a mod already gives to a forum is huge, let alone adding onto policing, checking, approving or denying members.

We as the professionals just have to be extra careful what we answer because in all honesty, it is pretty obvious who is a back yardie and who isn't by the questions they ask because even when you first start training, you have some sort of clue about some basics but some questions that come in are way below even this level and it makes it obvious I reckon anyway:)

As long as we focus on ourselves and what we offer within our own salons, our own training, our own business, our own legit suppliers and know that we are doing the right thing, we can hold our heads high.
 

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