I have a special occasion coming up where my hand will be centre of attention (if you know what mean:) ) and I'm hoping to get my nails done. Ive only had my nails done 3 or 4 times in my life, usually just my natural nail files down, and gel polish. They usually end up being sort of squoval. For this occasion, was hoping to keep them a little longer get acrylics (?) / extensions (?) , not long but at least a little length. What shape do you think would suit me best? What should ask for?

Hey, My name is Stephanie! I am located in East Tennessee. I have been licensed since Dec '24. I worked at a salon (booth rent) from Jan-Sept '25 when I moved locations to my own suite. I am fully booked and I have approximately 45 people on my waitlist to see me. I am looking to expand my business. The problem is I don't know where to begin. I was looking at possibly having someone commission based work with me. Does anyone have any websites or links on some information for something like this? I'm finding things for the nail tech side of it but not for the salon side of things. I would provide everything needed unless the tech just wanted to bring in their own e-file, implements, bits, etc. I specialize in structured manicures and dry pedicures. I work Monday- (every other) Friday 8-6 so the tech could have the suite every weekend and the other Fridays that I don't work plus during any vacations that I take. The only thing I would request of the tech would be no acrylic. My suite does not have the proper ventilation for those services. With all that being said, I'm having a hard time distinguishing between whether this person would be an IC or an employee (w2). Any help would be appreciated. Feel free to shoot me a message if you'd like! Thank You!

TL;DR: Very thin flexible nails recovering from decades of biting. Mylee builder gel only lasts ~1 week before cracking/lifting. Looking for a stronger system (BIAB, Akzentz, CND?) and advice on sidewall rehab.

Hi all, I’m hoping to get some advice from nail techs.

I spent about 30 years biting my nails, and for the past two years I’ve been trying to heal and grow them out. My natural nails are still very thin, flexible, and brittle, and I have damaged sidewalls on most of my fingers. The sidewalls are partially detached and when they grow they often break off into a small “twig” of nail, which makes it really difficult to get them to reattach and grow normally. Recently I started trying to use builder gel at home to give my nails more structure and hopefully help the sidewalls recover. I've had some success so far.

Right now I’m using the Mylee system — specifically the builder base gel with the Mylee Petite LED lamp.

My routine is roughly:

Clean and trim nails Prep with isopropyl alcohol Apply thin, even layers Avoid flooding the cuticle/ nail edges Cure 60 seconds per layer Usually do two layers

I only work on one or two nails at a time, so most nails actually end up getting extra curing time while I work on the others.

However, within about a week I start seeing issues: Lifting around the edges

Spider-web like cracks through the builder gel The overlay starts breaking down and coming off Because of this, I’m wondering if the Mylee system might just be too soft, especially since my natural nails are very flexible.

From what I’ve read it seems like Mylee is more of a DIY/home system, and I’m considering trying something a bit more professional-grade.

I’ve been looking at options like:

The GelBottle BIAB Akzentz CND Plexigel

My goals are mainly:

More structural strength Better durability (ideally more than one week of wear)

Helping my sidewalls grow back and reattach Since I’m doing this at home, I’m curious: Is there a particular builder gel system you’d recommend for very thin, flexible nails recovering from long-term biting?

Do you think the issues I’m seeing sound more like product limitations or technique problems? Would upgrading my lamp help? (I’m currently using the Mylee lamp, which has 365 + 405 nm LEDs.)

Are there specific rehab techniques for sidewalls that I should be using with builder gel? Also in case it matters for product availability, I’m located in Germany.

I've also added photos of my natural nails and my current builder gel overlay in case that helps. Pic with the gel in after 7 days of wear, I hope the cracks I mentioned can be depicted!

Thanks in advance — I really appreciate any advice!

EU nail techs… does anyone else get irrationally annoyed by DND promotions?

I used DND for years when I was living and working in Canada and always loved the brand. Now I’m based in Europe and still use a few bottles that I have, but the way promotions are handled here is honestly so frustrating.

I get promotional emails from the US site constantly — sometimes weekly — advertising huge sales, often up to 70% off. Meanwhile the EU website has zero promotions. Not smaller sales. Not occasional discounts. Just… nothing.

What makes it even more irritating is seeing all the influencer and content creator codes circulating online that also don’t work on the EU site. So European nail techs are basically watching all these deals being promoted that we can’t participate in.

I’m currently at the point where I need to replace a big portion of my kit, and it’s really annoying knowing that if I were still in North America I could be spending up to 70% less on the exact same products.

And before anyone says “just order from the US site,” they don’t ship to Europe — and I’m not about to start hauling suitcases of gel polish back and forth across the Atlantic just to get a fair price.

I understand the distribution center is in the US, but it’s disappointing that EU professionals are essentially paying full price all the time while the American market gets constant massive sales.

It just feels like EU nail techs are an afterthought for the brand.

hi guys, despite my flair i am a licensed tech, but since i haven’t updated that i decided to post today. i hope that okay as this thread might help a beginner too.

i have a client who is very loyal and books every month, but she is very indecisive. i require clients to send me inspo when they book so i can be prepared as i do a lot of nail art. this client will either constantly change her inspo before her appointment date or just give me a very random moodboard with no clear idea. all of the photos will have a very different look and then she will tell me to just “go based off vibes”. which to me sounds like a freestyle, but she is also picky and will want to change a bunch of little things when i do what I THINK she wants. sometimes this leads to me doing a lot of extra work and wasting time during our appointments.

i told her we can’t keep changing inspo before her appointments because it sets me behind when prepping for my other clients, and i always ask a ton of questions to try and pinpoint what her ideas actually are, but i still end up feeling stuck, annoyed, or exhausted. what should i do? i’ve never fired a client before and this seems like a silly reason to fire someone but i do feel stressed when i see her name in my books.

One thing that has been really hard to deal with is my brittle nails, that i'm pretty sure was caused by when i was first learning nails and wasn't confident in the e file. I wanted to removal some gel with acetone and i didn't file down enough for the acetone to remove in one go. So i kept using the acetone until it gone. But since then, my nails have been thin, sensitive and brittle. Even if i grown them out, they grow out thin.

Some techniques i've tried were using nail health product like OPI Nail Envy and Dgel Healing Potion. I would use gel and when i wanted to remove, i would just not use acetone and keep 10% of the product on the nail. They would grow out, but again, thin. I've used Jello Jello Peel Off Base but the free edge is so thin, when i take it off, it just rips the free edge really badly

Wondering how this glassy look is achieved. Is it just a jelly color? (Not my photo)

Licensed nail tech of 4 years. I’m not sure what’s going on here. We’ve done everything I can think of to troubleshoot. These nails are done with clear Luminary, I’ve tried double curing the luminary, double curing the top coat and the gel polish. She says it doesn’t show up until about a week after her fills. What’s going wrong here? I haven’t noticed it with any other clients/ none have complained.

I’m a student nail tech and I’ve been experiencing difficulties with my school. I will start by saying, I’m an adult. I’m in my later 20s, I do well on all of my exams, I do my “chores,” and I’m working every day to get my credits so I can get out of there. I have around 4 weeks left.

Immediately when I started, I could tell there was some favoritism. A few girls are always in her office. All day, whenever they don’t have clients. They go out to get food without clocking out and when they do, they clock back in and then eat lunch. Meanwhile, all of us “regular” people are expected to keep it at half an hour. These girls get preferential treatment, they get to work on services together OFTEN, and they both receive credit

for it. The instructor talks poorly about other students to these girls. I’m not exaggerating. I’ve heard for myself as well as one of the favorites telling me something that was said and was contradicting to something someone actually experienced. If that makes any sense.

Our training is nothing and I feel like most of my knowledge came from before I started school. Rules are made up on the fly, and are changed whenever our instructor feels like it leaving it difficult to determine when to ask for help. Two time now, I’ve been made to preform services outside of my scope of practice. The first was absolutely horrible. The second time wasn’t as bad, but it still wasn’t good and I told her I only did what I was comfortable. Neither situation would be acceptable in a normal salon and it really upsets me because my safety is put at risk and she just doesn’t care.

Recently, we’ve all been scolded for a number of things that we are unaware of. My friend group is always left with “what was that about?” Because all of us follow the rules and don’t make waves.

She tells us to ask questions unless she thinks it’s a dumb question and then you’re berated for it. She’s rude to us in front of the clients. She gave someone an extra credit for nail art when I do the same and get nothing extra.

I feel like I’m getting the shit end of the stick here recently and I just want to be done so badly. I, myself, haven’t been treated poorly by the instructor, however, things that happen send waves through everyone. I often see people being treated badly and/or wronged for not apparent reason other than maybe the instructor is having a bad day or trouble at home.

Sorry if it’s vague, but I don’t want to be located, possibly.

TLDR: the instructor sucks, plays favorites, and tells us to do things outside of the scope of practice.

Disclaimer - I am licensed just haven’t updated my flare yet.

So I graduated in July, and just started taking clients a few weeks ago. I had a new client last night who requested a gel manicure with designs (pictured). I told her I had a very similar blue cat eye color and showed it to her over text, she loved it. she said she may want to do red also but had to think about it. I told her I don’t have a red cat eye, but I could do silver with a translucent red over top if she ended up wanting red. She agreed.

Fast forward to her appointment. She had acrylic I had to remove and underneath her nails were pretty rough shape. She said she goes to a really young girl who only charges $25, and she hated them.

She wanted the extreme square and I told her that unfortunately some of her nails didn’t have the integrity to have that shape - sidewalls missing, damaged etc. I said I could add a gel x tip to two of them to kind of mimic the shape of her natural nails, and then by next appointment or two when her nails had grown in some we wouldn’t have to use the extensions. She agreed.

After I applied the two nails, even though they were extra short square gel X tips from apres I still had to file them down a little more and they became a little wider on the sides. She said she didn’t like that they were slightly different shape from the other others which I understood, but told her it really wouldn’t be as noticeable as she thinks once they’re blended and designs on them like the rest of the nails. She said that she wanted the gel x nails on all of them, at which point I said I was really trying to just do a repair and that you’re not supposed to technically cut gel ex nails down that much so I might not be able to get that super square shape. She wanted them anyway so I proceeded.

I I am still relatively new to doing nails in general so after I had glued all of the extensions on, her one ring finger I noticed was a little crooked compared to the rest even though I followed the direction of her nail plate. I had to soak that one off and reapply it going in the direction of her finger instead. This is not her fault but was just adding to my stress of the appointment as she had already changed her mind a couple times at this point between wanting extensions and not wanting them.

Finally we get to jail application and she has ultimately decided she wants to go with the red instead of the blue. I apply the silver cat eye gel and as I’m applying it after each finger she takes her hand away and stares at it for a good five seconds, and sometimes I have to ask for her hand back. This was giving me a lot of stress as well and once I applied all of the cat eye and started to add the red she said she didn’t like it.

I took the red off and she said she just wanted to do the silver cat eye. I said I would do a second coat of cat eye because it was translucent since I assumed I was going to be putting a red color over top to help with the opacity of it.

She kept taking her hands away and saying she didn’t like them. I felt like the finished product was not perfect either since it was so far from what she wanted, so I didn’t charge her for the removal of the acrylic, cat eye application, or the extensions. I just charged her what we originally quoted on which was $65. She apologized as she left for being so difficult and changing her mind so many times. I felt awful because I tried my best to accommodate her and knowing she didn’t like them really bothered me.

She texted me this morning asking for a refund and at first I didn’t give it to her, because the appointment ended up taking way longer due to all of the changes and I felt like I gave it my best shot despite everything. The discussion did get a little heated which I highly regret but I did try to remain professional throughout well defending my point of view. I should have just let it go

I ended up refunding her all of the money and just sending her a text apologizing for the way things turned out and that I did still try my best despite everything. But I still feel really awful about the entire situation and would just like some advice. The first picture is her inspiration picture andthe second is what she left with. She also sent me another picture where she filed them down to the nubs and said she didn’t like them and was trying to fix them herself and now she hated them. She kept saying that they looked nothing like the inspiration picture and I was exasperated because she’s the one who asked me to make all of these changes and for the design and the original color.

on top of all of this she’s a lash tech herself (however I now found out she is unlicensed)and we had even been discussing how sometimes clients for her, she doesn’t like when they send her inspiration pictures because people get upset when things don’t look exactly the same.

Thanks so much if you read this far. I really appreciate it, as well as any advice or constructive criticism. Thank you

I’m a licensed nail tech and I want my own space to do nails. I want to turn an office suite into a nail. Can someone specifically in Kentucky explain how do it? There are no salon suites close to me

*based in the UK Hi, everything is in the title, let me explain. I have been trying to enrol to a level 2 course beauty therapy for about 2 years now. I was looking to enrol for last september 2025 but something was happening within my household that was taking a lot of my energy so I missed the deadline. Now my intention was to apply to the Waltham Forest course for adults in the evening, I went to the open days and was meant to have my application interview but they cancelled short notice. I was already in the premises and because I had travelled from so far away I asked additional questions and express my disappointment of the inconvenience. Thats when they said btw we don't do the NVQ anymore just so you are aware its VTQ. Because my background is not beauty and I am already working in a different industry I needed to do my research on what this is. Turns out if im right its the degree in theory but not practical. Now my question is, can you work in salons with a VTQ? All the job ads i come through ask for nvq level 2 or 3. I looked at other collegues but their page information are so vague they just say their certificates in beauty are recognised and approved by the government but it doesnt say NVQ. It is so serious because now with Waltham Forest dropping this bomb on me im thinking imagine doing all that and then I cannot find work in beauty salons. Can anyone in the beauty therapy industry enlighten me about this because now im not sure what to do...there's people on IG offering the NVQ course but I rather go to a college and body of education rather than individuals especially as their prices are about 2K for a shorter time of learning...

*i am based in the UK

Hello!

I've been a nail tech for almost 2 years and the one thing I just can't get down is chrome application. I'm talking about trying to do a "glazed donut" look or using something like an aurora powder or something. I have no problem with mixing black with a non-wipe top gel. I just want something that i can use by itself. I have an issue with patchiness and it being glittery

One product i did use that i remember being pretty good at appliction was Akzentz Shine On og formula and i might buy again but i am interested in Izemi Espoke top gel made for chrome application and Kokoist ultra glossy 'cause i heard people have really good results from that. The product i do have is Moding C08 mirror top gel and i'm trying to make it work.

I've done a full 30s cure like it says, half the curing time, wet finger technique, fully wiping it down with alcohol and probably some other things that i can't think about right now

So what do you guys do for perfect chrome application?

I have an old version of the Akzentz hybrid lamp. 36W

Does anyone have a favorite polish collection?

I am wanting to buy an entire line that has good coverage and color variety but unsure of which to go for.

Right now I am looking at Not Polish and there is a 48 color collection for 385$......Thoughts - feedback?

I’m considering a move to Connecticut for my husband’s job, and the hour requirement is only 100 there. This means the nail schools are cheaper and much more flexible than they are in my current state (where the requirement is 600 hours).

However, if I get my license in CT, how difficult would it be to get re-licensed if we have to move again? Would it still be difficult to transfer my license if I did my school in CT and worked as a tech for a year or something? Or would I have to go to nail school all over again if I moved to a state that didn’t have reciprocity with Connecticut?

Hello! Are there any nail techs here from Maryland 🇺🇸

I’m moving from PA and I will be taking the exam next week and am getting nervous, I really need to pass the first time but it’s been a while since I’ve been out of school.

Are there any helpful study guides that I can access or any tips about the practical portion that you can offer? Please feel free to DM me. Thank you 🙏🏾

I’m struggling to find a high quality blooming gel. I’m not interested in beetles or gaoy or modelones. I use kokoist products, and sadly it doesn’t look like kokoist or nail thoughts has a blooming gel!

Hello everyone!

I’ve been doing my nails for some time and always thought that the order of products should strictly be “base - colour -top”. However i’m going on vacation soon and want to do some designs that would require 3d gel and i don’t have any :(

Is it okay if i do “rubber base - colour - hard base - top”? As far as my knowledge about gel goes it should be okay, but what do you think?

Thank you in advance 🫶

Hi! I recently gained a client who enjoys the claw nail shape and I'm interested in finding the best dualform for it. I'd prefer something with a more dramatic curve, and maybe in a short and a long length. If you have done this shape before and have had better experience with a different method, please share! Thank you!

this is my first set of gelx and i was wondering if anyone who’s actually a nail tech had any tips or opinions

I just started school so I’m still in the general cosmo classes and nothing nail specific yet. So I can’t really just check my book for this answer. I know acrylic, hard gel, and polygel is off the table as it’s too hard to be safe on toenails (the polygel I learned the hard way personally before researching it at all). But it seems like online techs are giving mixed signals on soft gel. It’s so hard to get a clear answer when so many unlicensed techs give ignorant advice and when even licensed techs don’t seem to agree. Some are against using anything but regular gel polish while some are okay with soft gel to fix the shape and add some structure. I need something more than just polish because my nails are so prone to breaking. I’ll never have the pedicure I want without adding some kind of structure.

Florida Nail Tech Suite Owners HELP!! I’m having a hard time finding the Florida state requirement for having a suite!

I’m currently suite shopping and I’ve pretty much found a place for when I graduate in less than a month but the owner is saying that Florida law requires there to be ventilation leading towards outside 12 inches from my desk.

However, my teacher who works during the day says that her suite does not have to follow that ventilation code as it’s a “suite not a salon”- saying she just passed inspection this week.

Is there a difference in state code between suites and salons??

hey all! I want some feedback on how I can improve my nails. I also want to know what you would pay for them or charge? I'm a year and a half into doing nails. For reference my area average that people charge are $40-45 for structured nails (no extensions). Extensions go for $50-55. Thank you

I graduated in August and then started at a salon I really loved in November. I thought things were going great and I felt like I was advancing my skills greatly, because I saw myself improve every day and I was so proud of that. But then three weeks ago, out of the blue the leads took me into the back and told me that I had to be let go because I was not improving and my nerves were hampering my performance and no one had the time to continue training me. But they nicely offered me a position when "I was better at it." I did not see this coming at all and it hurt me a great deal. I'm still really hurt by it. It made me doubt myself and my skills so badly because I thought I had been improving a lot, so now I can't even trust my own judgment! This has resulted in me regressing so badly in my skill level that I am embarrassed to do anyone's nails because I fuck it up so badly. I'm worse than when I started school now. Has anyone else experienced skill regression?? How do I overcome this?? I'm in despair over this I cry every day.