Has gel polish became a standard service for all nail techs?

[exceptionail]

I qualified as a nail tech 12 years ago now and there was no gel polish about then. The big thing was either a French/American polish with flicks, gems or nail art using acrylic paint.
I'm finding that full colour applications are preferred by around 8/10 clients. It's made me question if I should be offering gel polish as a standard part of service.

Do all you other techs offer gel polish within the service? Or do you charge extra?
Does it add a lot of time on with removal etc?

I'm mobile so I'm seeing negatives such as extra time and extra kit. But I don't want to be pushing myself out of the market and missing new business by now progressing with the times as it were.

Is nail art also easily achievable with the gel polishes?

Thank you in advance for reading!

 

[EmmaLF]

I would highly recommend getting into it. All my nail clients (minus gel nail extension clients) are gel polish. I very rarely get someone looking for normal polish. You could make a bigger profit by offering it, gain more clients and might find you enjoy doing it!

 

[Brooke_09]

Hi Emma, which gel polishes do you use?

 

[Emily9]

The only negative would be if you're not charging enough for it !

I think the majority all charge on top for this service I charge. £10 on top of an enhancement service and I haven't found it takes a great deal longer to remove.

I use Artistic Colour Gloss and love it ! It's made a massive difference to my business and income !

 

[Creative Keren]

I'd say that you absolutely should invest in gel polish. Firstly if your competitions are offering that and you are not, with it being in such high demand nowadays, I think you'd be foolish not to. Not only that but I'd say that my main income is from this service. I think that clients these days prefer to try and take better care of their natural nails and worry about the 'damage' they've encountered with enhancements before. No matter how many times you try to explain to them that the 'damage' isn't caused just by having them, but that's a whole different ball game.

I'd say that 80% of my treatments carried out are nail services. Of that, 60% of that would be gel polish and about 10% still have a manicure and a regular polish. The other 30% are my enhancement clients. For those who want gel on top i charge an add on price of £10. Just remember though if you're applying gel polish over your l&p you won't be able to soak the gel off,it will need filing and that can take time. Hth x

 

[pure]

By far the majority of my clients have either Shellac alone or on acrylic and gel. If you introduced this service, far from pushing yourself out of the market you'd instead be jumping straight into what is popular, what today's clients want and what they're willing to pay for.

It doesn't increase service times greatly however it would enable you to charge more! I can honestly say I have used normal polish probably less than 10 times in the last year - it's just not what most clients want anymore.

 

[exceptionail]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply.
If applying the gel polish over enhancements, would they need to be buffed off then?!? Is this the same with all gel polishes?

 

[pure]

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply.
If applying the gel polish over enhancements, would they need to be buffed off then?!? Is this the same with all gel polishes?

Yes, when you are de-bulking for a rebalance you would also file off the coating. This honestly takes me no more than an extra 5 minutes max. You're filing anyway so it's literally a few extra strokes per nail.

 

[exceptionail]

Yes, when you are de-bulking for a rebalance you would also file off the coating. This honestly takes me no more than an extra 5 minutes max. You're filing anyway so it's literally a few extra strokes per nail.

May be a stupid question but do you find that it blunts the file? Do you get through a lot more files?

 

[pure]

Not really any more so than filing off normal polish from enhancements. But even if you went through slightly more files, the increase in cost to you is just pennies per service compared to the additional £££'s it can create in income.