New tech...help, I'm drowning :(

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Callie

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Joined
Nov 29, 2003
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Location
Massachusetts, USA
Hi, everyone. I'm a new tech, got my license in April and got my first job in a salon about three weeks ago. The girl before me was moving, so she spent about a week with me teaching me the ways of the dremel, and her acrylic techniques, because I hadn't been taught very much about it at all. We only spent about a day on acrylics in school.

My manicures are great and getting better, my pedicures are fine as well. But the acrylics...

Although the quality of them is slowly going from poor to semi-okay, the time it takes for me to do a fill is outrageous. Three hours. I had a client tonight leave before I could polish her nails because I had taken so long. I tried to refund some of the money, but she didn't want to take it. I did insist, and she took back less than I had offered, but exactly the amount of the tip she left before the service.

I just feel awful about it. Fills are stressing me to a huge degree and I haven't the first clue as to what to do about it. Can anyone help me? I don't want to lose clients or dissappoint anyone.
 
sweetie i am the same!!!!!!!
i take 3 hours to do a french refill... that is using the dril as well and i still havent got refills to a perfection!! i know how you feel.. i almost feel bad charging people ... but then again they are only friends... not complete strangers..... as all the geeklings have told me here,,,, your time with come down with practice....
 
you are not alone, i know exactly how you feel. ;) Ive been doing nails since April too!!! I still take ages.

So its normal...only time will help and always being prepared to read and learn, look and listen...and your technique will improve.

But try not to stress , its not worth the headace. Some nights i will lay there stressing about how long i take to do nails, thinking that my clients will get stressed with me. Crazy i know!!

I say to my clients.....(with humour) "i will get quicker one day". My clients know now to allow 3 hours for appointments!!!!
Best wishes Bec xxoo
 
Read file control - the rebalance. That should reduce your time. And read the others as well ... your filing technique may be partly at fault.
 
This is what I was taught, step by step exactly. I use creative retention btw. No primer.

-examine nails, clip off excess acrylic lifting

-electric file around cuticle edge, shape free edge, file over entire nail, file under nail

-apply acrylic (shouldn't I have them wash their hands before this step???)

-electric file down and even out

-use block buffer to smooth

-use nail file to do final shaping

-have client wash and scrub hands

-polish
 
Hi Hon, I know where you are comming from, but it is just like everyone says, you will get faster. I have been doing nails since Jan. but I practiced on all my friends for free and some of them I still do for free or cost of product. I now can do a full set either tips or sculp, in 2hr. and a fill takes about 1 3/4 hr. this is still slow, but like you it use to take 3hr. I read somewhere that it takes about 100 sets before you start getting it. Well about the time I was getting the full sets down, I started having problems with my fills. You see, most people I did would not come back for a fill because it took me so long to do the orginal :( then I struggled with the problem of fills lifting, well now I think I am doing better.
School does not prepair you for this, you just have to hang in and practice, read everything and see if your family and friends will help you out by letting you practice on them. I think about all the customers I have lost because I was just learning, but the nail tech that I work with keep encouraging me and tell me, that I will find the right clientel for me, who will stick with with me. So hang out with nail tech that can give you good advice and incouragment. Like this group! They are wonderful and a true life saver.
Suzanne
 
Hey, I thought I was reading my own post. I got my license in april as well and I have the exact same problem. My first set of Acrylics on my wifes friend took four hours. Now I am down to two and a half. My fill takes about an hour and a half. But that is only because my wife had her friends come over and I had people that I practiced on constantly. Acrylics and Gels are a touch thing. It takes a while to develope the touch. Everyone here so far has said the same thing so you get the point.

I thought it was VERY decent of you to offer to refund the clients money. You are showing you are standing behinde your work and you do not want to lose the client. I think they will recognize that as well. Just let them know you are not fast but you are good. Keep going, it gets better....... Honest!
 
Callie said:
This is what I was taught, step by step exactly. I use creative retention btw. No primer.

-examine nails, clip off excess acrylic lifting

-
-Hi I have always been taught never to clip of any acrylic that as lifted this will add to more filling, or chasing the line. Also cause micro cracking in the product witch will lead to more service break down. Never mind the damge to the natural nail. If you read Geeg,s post on file control it will explain the correct way to remove any lifting... I know it helped me loads
I am sure with practice and time you will reduce your time, :lol:
-
 
Callie said:
-examine nails, clip off excess acrylic lifting

Hi
This is one of sams articles you may find it helpful.

Phil and the Jaws of destruction

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One fine day in “Phils lift n nip” nail salon, Bertha arrived for her 4:15 Tuesday appointment where Phil himself was there to greet her.
“Hey Bertha have a seat” Phil exclaimed in his usually cheerful voice. A voice that then suddenly turned sour as his eyes popped and little tiny veins jumped to attention upon his Botoxed forehead. “Holy cow Bertha. What the hell happened to your nails? Another bar fight? Did you take up Mud wrestling as a hobby over the past two weeks? They look like poop.” Phil pauses long enough to consider a chilling connection. “Bertha, come to think of it they look just like the rest of my clients nails. Its a conspiracy! Get Oliver Stone on the phone. All you guys are out to get me.”
“Sorry Phil,” Bertha started slowly shaking her head in dismay. “I was taking a shower the day after you did them and they just started to lift and pop off.” Bertha continued. “Maybe they are just too thick.”
“Scuse me? Since when did you become Doug Schoon? The thicker they are, the stronger they are.” Phil said defiantly (and rather stupidly). Just then Phil spied the clock above the door; “Lets just get started so I can finish before your next appointment in two weeks”.

Phil then proceeded to take out his trusty jaws of destruction (AKA acrylic nippers) and began to nip away the lifting that oh so frequently accompanied Berthas appointments.
Soon the salon became transformed into a scene from “Saving Private Ryan”. Shards of product whistling and whizzing by, bouncing off lamps, clients, and other assorted fine goods as screams come hither and thither from various corners of the salon as other tormentors (read: Nippin Nail technicians) also begin to pry product off from their victims nail plates. What Phil and the rest of the Spanish Inquisition are not aware of is how they are creating the problems they are trying to fix.

Jaws of destruction

As the Jaws of destruction come at that tiny ledge of lifted product, tremendous pressure is applied to the enhancement. When a technician begins to nip, tremendous pressure starts to be applied to the enhancement and millions of polymer chains begin to snap away from each other at an astonishingly rapid rate. Wherever this snap takes place, you have a crack. These cracks begin racing through the product at lightning fast speeds, each linking up with one another like tiny streams trickling together to form a river until a full circuit of cracks is completed. At that point, a chunk of product breaks off and in its anger, it takes a chunk of nail plate with it.

When nippers are used to pry product off, the prying motion uses the lifted edge as a lever. Under the force of this leverage, the product not only becomes shattered, but the integrity of the natural nail is torn apart. Don’t take the Geeks word for it, check one of the recently ejected pieces and you too will scream “HOLY MUTHA O MISSISSIPPI!! THERES STILL NAIL PLATE ATTACHED TO IT!!”

This antiquated method of removing lifting quickly thins out an otherwise healthy natural nail plate. The real kicker comes when you also realise that not only are you making the existing product substantially weaker, your damaging the nail plate. A thinner, more damaged nail plate is much more likely to experience further cracking, breaking, and lifting.

A lovely side effect of using nippers to remove lifting is that you are guaranteed to give your client a "Fill Line".
Fill lines led Phil to continue nipping, chasing that little bit of lifting until he either got too damn tired of chasing it, and gave up, or he had ripped the rest of the product (not to mention the natural nail plate) off.

Sure, Phil could do as many techs do (i.e. leave them there and claim that it’s a new nail art technique or use adhesive based fill line removers) but those techniques can promote weakness and even bacterial infections.

The only safe and effective way to remove lifting and fill lines is by blending up to the affected area until the product that is not attached simply flakes away. This can be a difficult chore if the product you are working on has been previously maintained using nippers as the enhancement will usually resemble a door stop as opposed to a nail enhancement. But you must persevere because technicians that need to nip lifted product away… nip it away because they are nipping in the first place!

In a business where we are paid to beautify and protect our clients natural nail plates, nipping lifted product is an antiquated technique that is more terrifying than the prospect of waking up to a morning of CD:UK with a severe hangover.
__________________
The Nail Geek
aka Samuel Sweet
 
I totally get that and I am ALL FOR not nipping. However, I am taking on an entire clientele of people who have been going to this woman for years and years and expect her techniques. How do I explain this to them? I'd rather not nip, myself, because it seems very traumatic to the nail.

btw fill and polish today took two hours! Not bad, even tho this woman comes every week :)
 
could you not go anywhere for a bit of extra training? seems you have been thrown in the deep end a bit!
its hard when it takes ages but just remember you are taking your time because you want to do the best job you can do! people appriciate it when you have done a great set of nails!
Kat xxx
 
Hi Kat! Yes, I've been totally thrown in the deep end :)

I have signed up for a one day, 8 hour course in electric filing, and have also made a two hour one on one appointment with an OPI consultant. Unfortunately, the file class isn't till mid December. Maybe I should look elsewhere for classes.
 
I've just read all these messages about being a new tech, I am so relieved!!! I was thinking i was the only one who took ages on a set. I just failed my Essential Nails course by 3 bloody points and i'm feelin a bit fed up as I have to re-submit. I wish I had known about NSI before I started this one.

I do nails for anyone who asks me at the moment and charge just for the materials but my main problem is that i am used to my practice hand and I do my own of course but whenever I get near a customer I start to get really hot and panicky cos i'm being watched. I hope this will go soon as it's really starting to be a problem. Any suggestions how to conquer this would be great. Have any of you guys had this problem?
 

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