Nail biters.............

[catsaremad]

Hi Guys

One of the girls in the hair dressers is a nail biter. I would like to do a NNO on her but she has bitten her nails right down the nail bed past the Onychondermal band so the hypoychium is exposed.

Whats the best way to procede????? I will be using Gel.

Would I use cover it gel up to where the free edge should be, if so I don't think I could get a form on for scultping? So Would I 'freehand' it and put oil round the skin to stop the product sticking????

What would you do then? Would you tip or just sculpt a small free edge in french...............I don't want to give her to much free edge to start chomping on again !!!

Also as a junior she is always washing hair etc so constantly has her hands in water and it does not matter how many times I say to her 'gloves' it aint happening !!!!

All Help greatly appreciated , many thanks

 

[Jolicatellas]

Here is a couple of posts recently asking about how to work on bitten nails. Hopefully you'll find some of this info of help

http://www.salongeek.com/nail-geek/90677-bitten-nail.html
http://www.salongeek.com/nail-geek/90696-advise-about-doing-sculpted-nails-biters.html

 

[mary1981]

Id be interested to know this too hun! hope someone can tell you the best way. At the moment with me being fairly new i think id like to do a couple of manicures first cos im not as brave as you lol! xx

 

[Vetty]

Hi Guys

One of the girls in the hair dressers is a nail biter. I would like to do a NNO on her but she has bitten her nails right down the nail bed past the Onychondermal band so the hypoychium is exposed.

Whats the best way to procede????? I will be using Gel.

Now, please don't take this the wrong way but as you are still training I would leave this girls nails well alone. Nail biters are notoriously hard on their hands and nails and the likely outcome is that you will end up doubting your abilities and knocking your confidence. As a Master Tech I wouldn't relish taking on a nail biting hairdresser - what a combination to wreck your work.

I hope you see where I'm coming from, because (especially at training prices) she will expect miracles and at this stage of your development you are very unlikely to be able to deliver them......

hth's

 

[Nene]

Nail biters are notoriously hard on their hands and nails and the likely outcome is that you will end up doubting your abilities and knocking your confidence. As a Master Tech I wouldn't relish taking on a nail biting hairdresser - what a combination to wreck your work.

I hope you see where I'm coming from, because (especially at training prices) she will expect miracles and at this stage of your development you are very unlikely to be able to deliver them......

hth's

I have to agree to this part, because I have had bad experiences with nail biters, too. And their expectations may be really hard to take and handle with, when one´s still practising.
I did take a nail biter when I had done nails for whopping one whole month, and that experience was... well, in retrospect it did teach me a lot, but I did feel very upset and felt like I will never be able to master these skills... these experiences can be read in one of the recent threads.

But I don´t know if one should really intentionally avoid potential problem customers when beginning the career... Of course it is easier to learn the basic routines and become good with that, when the clients are "normal" (can I use such a word :green. But in my case, oh well, I´m one silly ambitious girl, so I wanted to take the challenge.
I guess in the end, a lot of it is up to how well the nail tech and customer both understand what to expect - and if everything isn´t easy peasy, some sort of mutual agreement can be made.
Just my thoughts as a fellow junior in nails... :hug:

 

[EmJZ]

in my experience, I've found using tips to be the way to go. I use clear tips, coverage colour gel, then add the white smile in where it would look best. I can't me much help on the sculpting because, quite quickly, I get frustrated fitting forms to nail bitters.
Good luck

 

[catsaremad]

Many thanks for all your comments and advise, I do know that I am trying to run before I can walk !!!!

But I can't help myself I have become obsessed..............the first thing I do when talking to people is check their hands and nails lol.............then find myself awake at night thinking mmmmmmm know how can I improve that, wonder what the procedure would be, then I come salon geek and try and see if what I thought I would do is actually what I should do lol

But don't worry I have told my nail biter that I want to get her cuticles into shape first and have recommended a couple of manicures before I do any thing just so I can try and gt her 'interested' in her own nails again. I need several more weeks training before I even attempt her...................got to get better at the tips and getting my apex sorted first .

 

[tracey louise]

i did a nail biter who was a friend and quite a severe biter using glynis' method of 'freehand' as you called it and it worked wonders for me.(theres a before and after pic in my album)
i do agree with whats been said but you are obviously not rushing into it so i wish you luck when you do them.x

 

[A Perfect 10?]

Well I started working part time from a hairdresser's a few weeks ago. The Owner approached me to say that her daughter was a serial nail biter and would I have a look at what (if anything) I could do for her.

The girl had less than half her nail bed length left. She'd been chewing away for years. There was no broken skin but also not much nail to work with either. The ends of her fingers were very bulbous and swollen.

Anyway, cut a long story short..... on her first appointment I did some cuticle work and just applied a layer of clear gel as an NNO. She came back 2 weeks later and hadn't bitten. She had the tiniest bit of regrowth but it was definately regrowth. I again did some cuticle work and sent her away with some Cuticle oil this time. Her fingers are now not swollen at the ends and they look a lot better already but nails still extremely short.

I wouldn't have felt comfortable tipping or even sculpting for this girl as I'm not even sure how I would have done it and I think she could have done some damage to herself with her biting them off. However, I told her what I could do to begin with and she seemed happy enough. IMHO for this client it was and still is important to put the emphasis on her looking after her nails and not biting them before I could or would consider tips etc. I think she would have done a lot more damage with tips as I'm sure she wouldn't have resisted the urge to bite them too.


I still have a HUGE way to go as I'm very new to the nail industry as a technician but I'm happy with the results on this client.

I SO wish I had taken a piccy. That's taught me a lesson!!!