Follow Amie Pollard, nail school student and recipient of the Beauty Changes Lives|CND|Tippi Hedren Scholarship, through her days of school!
September 17, 2014
Oooh, that smell! The smell of acrylic, that is. In week 10, we learned the technique of doing fills on acrylic nails and then we were able to practice with our regular acrylic. I must say, being in such a small room with four of us working with the real stuff was quite potent. We had an air purifier going but we still took a break every hour. I had worked with regular acrylic before, but not for that long in a confined area. I’d say that both kinds of acrylic have their pros and cons. Regular acrylic does not yellow when it is applied but it does harden much faster so you have to work very quickly. This is quite difficult until you get the technique down. Odorless acrylic takes longer to harden so you have more time to manipulate it, however, it does tend to yellow. The yellowing doesn’t matter if you are going to paint over it, but it certainly matters if you are doing something like a pink and white application. We practiced making our beads on our practice sheet before we practiced on our mannequin hands. I really like doing 3D acrylic nail art, so I started to make a bow out of white acrylic. My teacher saw and jokingly “yelled” at me! Oops!
Our chapter for the week was Chapter 9, artificial nail services. This chapter, like chapter 8, was like a review of things we had already learned. The chapter discusses the 3 major types of artificial nail applications (acrylics, gels, and wraps), and explains the steps to take when using them. We hadn’t done wraps yet at that point, so that was something new for us to discuss. Prior to starting nail school I had never even heard of a nail wrap and had no idea what it was! Now that we have learned it (that’s coming next week), I think I may be hooked!
The preparation work for any artificial nail service is the same for all of them, and in my opinion, the most important step in the process. If you do not have a good foundation your final product is going to lose its integrity. The cuticle has to be removed from the nail plate, the shine has to be removed from the nail, and any oils and residue need to be removed as well.
We read through the chapter on Wednesday night and tested out on Thursday (100!). We had clinic on Thursday night where I worked on my pedicure requirements (that’s all I have left to do!). I can’t believe we only have a month left of school! Time is going by so fast! See you next week. -Amie
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[Images: Amie Pollard]
