If you don’t have access to a computer and you haven’t been able to see what goes on on the NailTech Mailing List, you’re missing one of the best opportunities in the nail industry. It’s a highly educational, often controversial, sometimes repetitive, but never boring, forum for nail technicians to interact. Even if you go to lots of shows and join associations, you probably don’t have the kind of access to product information, technical tips, career advice, and genuine caring from others in your field as you can now get online.

Started five years ago by Debbie Doerrlamm, who monitors the list and also writes for NAILS, the NailTech Mailing List is found at www.BeautyTech.com. BeautyTech has two additional ways for nail technicians to communicate: there’s the bulletin board feature, and then there’s the “chat room,” which is a live chat on Sunday nights at 10:00 p.m. EST where you talk via your computer to other techs around the country, and frequently to manufacturers, distributors, chemists, and the occasional editor.

The best thing that comes out of these forums is the frank discussion of the issues challenging nail technicians. If you want to try a new product, you’ll get the honest evaluation from other techs who’ve tried it. Any they won’t give you the it-slices-it-dices marketing gobbledygook, either. They tell you want you need to know, using the kind of terms that make sense to a working nail technician.

If you don’t have a computer, figure out a way to get access to someone else’s and see what’s going on on the web. It’s where things are happening in nails.

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