geeg
Judge Gigi-Honorary Geek
Most of we girls take it for granted that we know how to polish nails
after all, we have been doing it since we were about 12 years old, right?
Why is it then that you can tell a professional polish job a mile away from the home done DIY variety? What makes the professional precision polish different?
1. For one, its glossy and shiny
2. It is much longer lasting
3. There are no brush marks, no streaks and no snags.
4. The perimeter lines are perfect and there is no polish on the skin
All the attributes of a professional precision polish are achieved by using certain techniques that the average woman really does not know about.
Lets start at the beginning by using a top quality enamel that has a beautiful brush (very important), excellent coverage, never goes thick in the bottle and that dries quickly and is a professional brand of the highest quality and not one that your clients can buy in the high street; these are things a professional should be demanding from the polish line she uses.
There are several very good professional brands. I choose to work with Colours from Creative Nail Design, because they do everything I demand of them as a qualified specialist. I also find the shape of the Creative bottle very easy to hold in the palm of my hand, but first things first.
It is always necessary to loosen up the polish by rolling the bottle between the palms of your hands. Is this just an affectation? Cant I just shake it up, you ask? If you shake up a bottle of polish, it will be full of thousands of bubbles that can come to the top and create little craters in the surface of your polish later not the look your client desires, I think. So roll the bottle of your chosen colour in the palms of your hands the professional way.
Believe it or not, most amateurs dont even load the brush or remove it from the bottle correctly. This results in: tops that wont come off the bottle unless you run them under boiling water to loosen them and sticky gunked-up caps. No one has time in the salon to deal with these problems so it is best to develop the correct methods in the first place and to avoid them.
I work from left to right starting with the little finger and working right accross the two hands, ending with the other little finger.
Take the little finger of the clients right hand and hold it with the thumb, index and middle finger of your non-dominant hand (just as you would when applying product see Brush Control Part 1). Hold the bottle in the palm of your hand and keep it secure using your ring and pinky finger.
Next loosen the cap on the polish bottle and hold it as described in Brush control Part 1. Pull the brush out of the bottle away from you, and remove the polish from the far side of the brush. Using this technique leaves the brush in the perfect position to get started, with the polish on the correct side of the brush for you to work efficiently, and no sticky bottle necks.
if it is part of your system, always start with a base coat and apply it to a nail that is completely free of oil and contamination. A Base coat like Creative Stickey or LUMOS Bottom Coat is designed to be soft and to attract the colour to it smoothly. It is not designed to be hard and protective that is the job of the Top Coat.
Making sure your polishing hand is balanced correctly, place the loaded brush in the middle of the nail and apply gentle pressure on the brush to fan it out and spread the bristles, which (if it is a good brush) should be gently curved in the shape of the eponychium. Once fanned out, push back, up to, but not touching the eponychium, and then pull quickly towards you with light pressure to the free edge. The amount on the brush will now be less and you can fill in either side of the unfinished nail with out fear that the polish will run into the nail groves. Lastly take the side of the brush and run it along the free edge so that it also gets a coat. If your brush runs out, always finish in a straight line so that when you come back with a new loaded brush, it melds together seamlessly with the coat on the nail.
Next the chosen colour is added immediately. Apply this coat slowly and methodically but in exactly the same way (the push pull method) making sure you do not drag the bristles along the nail but rather use very light strokes which will create a smooth surface. Do not forget to run the side of the brush along the edge of the free edge and be sure to leave a tiny free margin at the sidewalls and the eponychium.
Colour adds illusion to your nail design. Nails look sleeker and slimmer when you leave a free margin around the nail plate. You can rotate the finger to make sure you get as close as possible whilst not touching the soft tissue surrounding the plate. Use your thumb and index finger to pinch the skin away from the plate to give you more room to work.
The second coat of colour always goes on quickly as you have already established your edges and you can more easily follow what you have done before. Keep strokes very light and quick for perfect smoothness, almost flicking the brush over the surface.
Lastly apply your chosen topcoat in the same method and use very light strokes. LUMOS Top coat is formulated to work in tandem with LUMOS Bottom coat for the longest lasting polish. CND Air Dry is also a great fast drying Top Coat along with Super Shiney.
The Final Details.
The final details are the most important because your client wants to leave you with a precision perfect job; that is why she is paying you to do it for her because you are the professional and she is not.
For perfect detailing you need an old acrylic brush with a point and a product called Nail Fresh from Creative Nail Design. Nothing does this job better than Nail Fresh, which is an Ether based product and evaporates quickly enough to never make the polish go gooey or smear.
In my opinion, polish corrector pens and cuticle sticks wrapped in cotton are more apt to spoil a good polish than to add the fine details to it. The pens become contaminated with polish as soon as you use them and need constant replacement and orangewood sticks with cotton fibers make more mess than they prevent.
Simple! Just dip your brush into Nail Fresh and then use the point to gently remove any polish colour that may be spoiling the nice line you want to create. Wipe the brush on a tissue before dipping back into the bottle if you have more corrections to do. You may also remove polish from the skin very quickly and easily with this magic product. If you have never tried it then do so. You will never go back to the old ways again.
Why is it then that you can tell a professional polish job a mile away from the home done DIY variety? What makes the professional precision polish different?
1. For one, its glossy and shiny
2. It is much longer lasting
3. There are no brush marks, no streaks and no snags.
4. The perimeter lines are perfect and there is no polish on the skin
All the attributes of a professional precision polish are achieved by using certain techniques that the average woman really does not know about.
Lets start at the beginning by using a top quality enamel that has a beautiful brush (very important), excellent coverage, never goes thick in the bottle and that dries quickly and is a professional brand of the highest quality and not one that your clients can buy in the high street; these are things a professional should be demanding from the polish line she uses.
There are several very good professional brands. I choose to work with Colours from Creative Nail Design, because they do everything I demand of them as a qualified specialist. I also find the shape of the Creative bottle very easy to hold in the palm of my hand, but first things first.
It is always necessary to loosen up the polish by rolling the bottle between the palms of your hands. Is this just an affectation? Cant I just shake it up, you ask? If you shake up a bottle of polish, it will be full of thousands of bubbles that can come to the top and create little craters in the surface of your polish later not the look your client desires, I think. So roll the bottle of your chosen colour in the palms of your hands the professional way.
Believe it or not, most amateurs dont even load the brush or remove it from the bottle correctly. This results in: tops that wont come off the bottle unless you run them under boiling water to loosen them and sticky gunked-up caps. No one has time in the salon to deal with these problems so it is best to develop the correct methods in the first place and to avoid them.
I work from left to right starting with the little finger and working right accross the two hands, ending with the other little finger.
Take the little finger of the clients right hand and hold it with the thumb, index and middle finger of your non-dominant hand (just as you would when applying product see Brush Control Part 1). Hold the bottle in the palm of your hand and keep it secure using your ring and pinky finger.
Next loosen the cap on the polish bottle and hold it as described in Brush control Part 1. Pull the brush out of the bottle away from you, and remove the polish from the far side of the brush. Using this technique leaves the brush in the perfect position to get started, with the polish on the correct side of the brush for you to work efficiently, and no sticky bottle necks.
if it is part of your system, always start with a base coat and apply it to a nail that is completely free of oil and contamination. A Base coat like Creative Stickey or LUMOS Bottom Coat is designed to be soft and to attract the colour to it smoothly. It is not designed to be hard and protective that is the job of the Top Coat.
Making sure your polishing hand is balanced correctly, place the loaded brush in the middle of the nail and apply gentle pressure on the brush to fan it out and spread the bristles, which (if it is a good brush) should be gently curved in the shape of the eponychium. Once fanned out, push back, up to, but not touching the eponychium, and then pull quickly towards you with light pressure to the free edge. The amount on the brush will now be less and you can fill in either side of the unfinished nail with out fear that the polish will run into the nail groves. Lastly take the side of the brush and run it along the free edge so that it also gets a coat. If your brush runs out, always finish in a straight line so that when you come back with a new loaded brush, it melds together seamlessly with the coat on the nail.
Next the chosen colour is added immediately. Apply this coat slowly and methodically but in exactly the same way (the push pull method) making sure you do not drag the bristles along the nail but rather use very light strokes which will create a smooth surface. Do not forget to run the side of the brush along the edge of the free edge and be sure to leave a tiny free margin at the sidewalls and the eponychium.
Colour adds illusion to your nail design. Nails look sleeker and slimmer when you leave a free margin around the nail plate. You can rotate the finger to make sure you get as close as possible whilst not touching the soft tissue surrounding the plate. Use your thumb and index finger to pinch the skin away from the plate to give you more room to work.
The second coat of colour always goes on quickly as you have already established your edges and you can more easily follow what you have done before. Keep strokes very light and quick for perfect smoothness, almost flicking the brush over the surface.
Lastly apply your chosen topcoat in the same method and use very light strokes. LUMOS Top coat is formulated to work in tandem with LUMOS Bottom coat for the longest lasting polish. CND Air Dry is also a great fast drying Top Coat along with Super Shiney.
The Final Details.
The final details are the most important because your client wants to leave you with a precision perfect job; that is why she is paying you to do it for her because you are the professional and she is not.
For perfect detailing you need an old acrylic brush with a point and a product called Nail Fresh from Creative Nail Design. Nothing does this job better than Nail Fresh, which is an Ether based product and evaporates quickly enough to never make the polish go gooey or smear.
In my opinion, polish corrector pens and cuticle sticks wrapped in cotton are more apt to spoil a good polish than to add the fine details to it. The pens become contaminated with polish as soon as you use them and need constant replacement and orangewood sticks with cotton fibers make more mess than they prevent.
Simple! Just dip your brush into Nail Fresh and then use the point to gently remove any polish colour that may be spoiling the nice line you want to create. Wipe the brush on a tissue before dipping back into the bottle if you have more corrections to do. You may also remove polish from the skin very quickly and easily with this magic product. If you have never tried it then do so. You will never go back to the old ways again.
Last edited:
