Worst nails from lazy tech's

[Moby]

Don't have any major horror stories, the usual NSS stuff really but the worst nails I found was actually at a professional salon I joined!!!

Constant greenies in my first 3 weeks! Yuck! Sorted them all, and no one back since with any thank god!
Lifting being ignored, quick scuff and fill in!! The other tech there who had done them said "it was taking too long so I just left it" OMG!
Tips being sized too small - 2 nails on a lady had been totally bent inwards and squashed! I was gobsmacked, didn't know what to say to her!

Also my boss believes to use the cheapest stuff possible and do the best looking nails in the quickest amount of time!!! She pays £1 for a 50 pack of tips!!

In my experience, bad nails are expected from NSS but most professional salons I've visited have also had very bad nails produced. Apart from my trainer, I think i've actually only found 2 techs who did good/reasonable nails, but still couldn't do infills and remove lifting properly.

 

[rouge]

well there are a heap of horror stories out there... I understand that some people may not be educatored in nail tech... but they have eyes!... if your nails are turning green alarm bells should be ringing... if any other part of your body went green you would be straight to the dr.... surely people are not that silly... also don't people look at other ladies nails?... when i was a client long before i trained i would look at other peoples nails to see if their were better than mine.. If so I asked for their salon name and went to them... if you are paying for a service you want it to be the best..... I expect all my clients to leave feeling happy, pampered and with healthy nails most of all...
only takes a few bad words to hurt your business..

I'm just reading this thread out of interest, not being a nail tech, but yes I'm afraid some people ARE that silly. I read an account in a mag a few years back about a lady who went for an eyelash tint and had an extremely bad reaction. There was a whole article about it, and she said that when the tint was on her eyes were stinging really really badly. Well, hello! Why on earth didn't you say something strainght away so the therapist could take it off?!

My point is, always assume that people know nothing. If they know WHY you do what you do, and why it's different from maybe what they've had done before, then they become educated in what is the right and wrong way for any treatment to be carried out. (Not at all a personal comment aimed at you, mdskora, just a general observation! :hug

 

[mdskora]

no offence taken.. point taken.

 

[milkshakerrr]

I'm just reading this thread out of interest, not being a nail tech, but yes I'm afraid some people ARE that silly. I read an account in a mag a few years back about a lady who went for an eyelash tint and had an extremely bad reaction. There was a whole article about it, and she said that when the tint was on her eyes were stinging really really badly. Well, hello! Why on earth didn't you say something strainght away so the therapist could take it off?!

My point is, always assume that people know nothing. If they know WHY you do what you do, and why it's different from maybe what they've had done before, then they become educated in what is the right and wrong way for any treatment to be carried out. (Not at all a personal comment aimed at you, mdskora, just a general observation! :hug

Totally! I really enjoy educating people about proper nail care and all that... If they did know what was what, they wouldn't be okay with letting people "etch" their natural nails with electric files.

I'm sure most techs who do that are the same way; they don't know any better! I was actually TAUGHT that it's okay to use the electric file on the natural nail. (In a course about electric filing because Colorado requires certification for techs who use e-files, no less!) I was horrified when my sister told me I had been doing something VERY bad... But I didn't know any better. :o

It's always good to learn something new, even better to pass it on. :green:

 

[Melissa-Jayne]

Id much rather take longer and produce good nails than rush or cut corners i often worry about my time i work mobile and some of my clients are looking at there watches as im doing their nails as if to say 'hurry up' but when they are booking in 2-3 weeks later they seem happy that all there nails are still on as most say that usually a lot of nails ping off! id love to be quicker at my job because when ive added on time travelling to and from clients i can proprally only fit in about 4-5 a day (depending when i start/finish) and i would make more money BUT id rather take longer and have my clients re-booking than rushing or cutting corners and getting no-body call back!

 

[pinkynails]

Hi

Im only a newbie myself. bin doing them for 2mths now. I had a girl ring me a mth ago asking if i'd take her gel ones off and put some acrylics on. (I only do acrylic)
When I got there they were an absolute mess. They were all diferent thickness, some of the tips she had put on were too big. the gel went all over her skin (not good with the technical words :lol and had got dirt under them. She had gone back to them to say she was unhappy and the technician just put another layer of gel on top! they were bumpy an turning yellow and she had only had them done two days before she rang me.
It took forever to get them off. I didnt feel so nervous then about how mine would look :lol:.
I did feel sorry for her, they even charged her when she went back to them. I couldnt do that.
Luckily she was made up with mine and has been a regular ever since. Her nails seem to grow fast too and she wants infills every week.
I know mine werent fantastic when I first started but this technician she went to had been doing them for 2 years aparently.

 

[sian1979]

ok....i have been doing nails for a while now. (1 year)
I am confident in the training that i had as it has given me a good base to build apon....and i have continued to educate my self through this site as well other other books etc.

I have had many problems while learning.....fill lines, greenies, learning how to file the free edge correctly to get a nice shape, the usual (i thought really for a newbie to the industry). I am lucky as even though i work on my own with no other techs about me to ask what to do when a problem arises i have all my geeky friends to ask for help.....thank god!!!! (Some are not that lucky!!)

I know in myself i do not compromise health and safety.

I would like to think that i have improved drastically since i first started....and i know i lost some clients in the early days....and i fully expected to. I would hate to think that any of these clients had gone to another tech and sat there are total slated everything i had done. At the time (first few weeks) i would have probably cried :cry::cry: and given up....well i did cry and thought about it a few times.....but pulled myself together, lol!

I have had my fair few sets that have come from other salons/techs....and some have been BAD! I have been th one that has sorted it and done a better job....i have not had to say anything to the client...they can see for themselves.
I understand that you are not all talking about people who are new to the industry.....but i wanted to add that to it as i can see what fiona was trying to say.

:hug::hug::hug:

 

[RandomPresence]

I WISH I had thought to take before and after pics of the worst I've ever seen.

Newbie client, now a regular of course.

How many things were wrong with them? Here's the list (and I HOPE I never see tis again)

• About 4 or 5 rings of fire on EVERY finger!
• The acrylic was yellow
• When you looked down the barrel, they were uneven and lumpy from sidewall to sidewall (and I mean EXTREME DIFFERENCES!).
• When yoiu looked at the nail sideways, they were uneven and lumpy from eponychium to free edge.
• Ultra thick
• They were not only hats, they were literally "fan" shaped at the free edge. Going wider than the sidewalls.
• Acrylic was applied UNDER the free edge (because the client had complained about dirt getting underneath or something?)
• Visible lift that hadn't been removed completely before refill.

This from a tech claiming 15yrs experience and ALL on one person

At the time of the 'rebalance/repair", I was afraid to remove them because of the visible damage and how tender they were. I thought she might be too uncomfortable, and suggested we just rebalance. I was very concerned about a heat-spike of gel over damaged nails. WELL just for the rebalance, the filing of the product caused her discomfort such that I did what I could, but told her I'd thin them out more at the next appointment.
I had lopped off the ends, and sculpted new ends.... So there wasn't a tonne of "yellow" acrylic left, but... she was still uncomfortable and squeaking?
By the end of the 2nd appointment, they had a good shape, but she was still having discomfort whenever I went anywhere near the "old zones" that had been worked on by the previous tech.
I felt so bad for her discomfort. She said she didn't know... The other tech had told her it was normal to be uncomfortable and that she was over-sensitive.

Now 2mths later, she smiles and laughs through the service, and LOVES her nails.

Another time, a client showed up with: yellow acrylic, rings of fire, HOLES that pierced her actual nails (we had removed the old product) from over filing by previous tech (pics on my site somewhere), she had infection, etc.. it was bad.

While I always feel great about re-educating clients and showing them that nails can be beautiful and painless: I HATE seeing that sort of destruction of the natural nail.

Whats a ring of fire?

 

[mdskora]

A ring of fire is a red friction burn to the natural nail plate from over filing.... very common result from the NNS who use efiles... as the above post mentioned some actually burn right thru the natural nail plate leaving them bleeding.....

 

[BingoBrebner]

OMG this is shocking, I now realise that the girl that used to do my nails didnt follow through on prop nail prep and also missed out a few vital bits of information with regard to lifting, bacteria etc but now I know better, I hope!!! Can you please tell me what rings of fire are, I've not heard of this before.

Thanks

Linda

 

[Prionace]

I've seen my share of disasters on nails, and each week i get freshly battered nails, so everycase is a case.
The question is:
What do you say to clients with nails in this type of shape? "Hun, your nails look awfull, where in the hell did you get them?" no, right? What is even worse is that i have several clients that are on holidays, so in the end they will go back home and i have to advise them NOT to go back to their usual place. It's not easy!
What i've been trying to do is to educate the clients. I explain very carefully what i'm doing and why it is important. Like the pushing back the cuticle to avoid lifiting, using sanitised materials and wiping with the nails with dehydrator/disinfectant to avoid infections etc... What i hope to acomplish is that if they go to another place they can tell if something is "off"

 

[Moby]

I don't think most clients take it all in to be honest. Some just don't learn and can't tell the difference. I've done sets that I've been over the moon about after someones come in with disgusting nails and i've expected loads of praise at the end and it's like "thanks hun." and that's it.

One example of how much they take in is that I've had a lady coming to me for over a year now and a couple of weeks ago, while I poured the monomer, she says "oh, you've changed it! Wasn't it blue before??"

What the frig?? lol

 

[mummy2courtney]

Hey, I know I'm not a pro and I haven't been doing/seeing other peoples nails yet, but I wanted to read this out of interest. I can tell you of a couple of horror stories from myself and reading this has made me realise just how bad my nails must have looked so I'm more determined to go to college now and learn PROPERLY.
I apologise if I don't use any nail abbreviations, I don't know them yet.

The 1st time I ever had my nails done was with an electric file but I thought this was ok as it was the first salon I had been to.
She cut my nails, clipped cuticles and put some oil on them, she filed nail bed, glued tip on,added acrylic, filed and buffed. In that order.
She burnt my nails so much with the file that I nearly cried and kept flinching away from her, 2 days later I called them to ask how long it took for nails to lift and they told me it would be about 4 weeks depending on the person. I told them I thought mine had lifted and that one had fell off so they asked me to go back in, I did and they charged me a further £45 to infill them. I can say I didn't go back.

The 2nd salon I went to, a different one as I wasn't happy with the 1st, done almost the same thing but she used a normal nail file, she slipped so many times that I left with blood running up my hands and in between my nail bed and acrylic. She told me it would sort itself out. I went back the following day and asked her to remove them all which cost me £25.

I'm not using this to slate people/salons I'm using it as a response on the other hand. I have been there with those funny nails and I didn't know any different until reading all of this.

 

[xxtammyxx]

hello do sombady can help me whit aquarium nails becease if i put water between the two nails en the glitters dee dont spralkling around but stay al togheter
sorry for my englich im coming from holland greats tamara

 

[yeahyeah]

these are some of the worst nails ive ever come across... they were a horrible nightmare, they came from the walmart salon (known as regal nails, california nails, da-vi nails, depending on location, but its all the same company). im pretty sure they were MMA, i couldnt file them down even with my e-file and they took HOURS to soak off... she was a first time client at that salon and wanted her tips extended for her wedding, they told her they couldnt make them any longer and just did an acrylic nno, she wanted pink and white, but they told her there was no such thing as pink acrylic ,that its clear. she said she tried to argue with them that she'd had pink before at other salons and they pretended not to speak english. when i finally got them soaked off there were marks like this ### etched into her natural nail plate, she said he did it with an efile and told her thats the only way to make them stay on, and you cant see in the pics but her cuticles had been scuffed by over filing to the point they'd been bleeding.... her nails were in such bad shape, i was reluctant to even put any product back on them until they were healthy again and i wouldnt have if her wedding wasnt the next day!

:irked::irked:

 

[mdskora]

Wow now that is some real bad work there... my god what the hell .. why did she even stay there after they did the first nail?.. I would have gt up and left without paying... I hope she didn't pay for those things!..
Pat on the back for you for givin gher nice nails for her wedding day.
those places need to be shut down.. they are ever where
There is no doubt it was MMA.... hours to soak is a sure bet.
I hope she came back to you for an infill.
Mel

 

[yeahyeah]

Hey, I know I'm not a pro and I haven't been doing/seeing other peoples nails yet, but I wanted to read this out of interest. I can tell you of a couple of horror stories from myself and reading this has made me realise just how bad my nails must have looked so I'm more determined to go to college now and learn PROPERLY.
I apologise if I don't use any nail abbreviations, I don't know them yet.

The 1st time I ever had my nails done was with an electric file but I thought this was ok as it was the first salon I had been to.
She cut my nails, clipped cuticles and put some oil on them, she filed nail bed, glued tip on,added acrylic, filed and buffed. In that order.
She burnt my nails so much with the file that I nearly cried and kept flinching away from her, 2 days later I called them to ask how long it took for nails to lift and they told me it would be about 4 weeks depending on the person. I told them I thought mine had lifted and that one had fell off so they asked me to go back in, I did and they charged me a further £45 to infill them. I can say I didn't go back.

The 2nd salon I went to, a different one as I wasn't happy with the 1st, done almost the same thing but she used a normal nail file, she slipped so many times that I left with blood running up my hands and in between my nail bed and acrylic. She told me it would sort itself out. I went back the following day and asked her to remove them all which cost me £25.

I'm not using this to slate people/salons I'm using it as a response on the other hand. I have been there with those funny nails and I didn't know any different until reading all of this.

hey, welcome to the board:green: i thought id comment on your post since your interested in the nail world. first off, its a great profession and i hope you decide to go to school! you sound like just the kind of person who would make a great tech, youre already interested in learning lol! i just want to say though, that an e-file is a completely accepted and wonderful tool when used properly, it does take additional training (or should rather), so not every tech who uses one should be using it. but when in the right hands they are a great tool, so dont let that be a factor in choosing a tech, and i would definitely recommend getting some efile training if you decide to go to school, it will make your job as a nail tech a tremendous amount easier

 

[marioned]

Oh what terrible nails! They look as though they've been done by a 4 year old. How can anyone think they've done a good job when they end up looking such a mess! Glad you could help her for her wedding! xx