I also 'trained' through essential nails. I dont regret it as such. At the time, it was as much as i could do and if i had waited, i'm convinced i would have wimped out and never done it. I didnt know what was a good course and what wasnt.
It is a painful way to learn. It teaches you the bare minimum and you end u making so many mistakes and battling through things for weeks that could have been solved in days with the help of and experienced eye.
This site, and my eagerness to do the best i could, saved me from being a very very poorly informed technician. But there are so many very very poor educator lead courses out there, i could and probably would have ended up in with bad training in one of those. I just had no idea where to look for the good courses or if there was even a difference.
But if i could do it all again knowing what i know now, i would. I dont dislike home courses, they give many girls the step into nails that they may not of had without them, but some never know or choose to look beyond that first step