Behind the Scenes: Airbrush Advocate Spreads Her Message

“Bad education is as detrimental as no education,” says Dianne D’Agnolo, this month’s cover tech and product development manager of Too Much Fun (Mission Viejo, Calif.). Educating nail technicians on how to incorporate airbrushing into their services is a mission for her. “We’re working to make people see that airbrushing is not just for nail art – it’s for the professional application of color, enabling shading, contouring, and an unlimited number of French manicure variations. Techs can make hundreds of dollars a week doing conservative color application,” she says.

D’ Agnolo started her beauty career as a cosmetologist in Illinois 15 years ago, but found she didn’t want to stand behind a chair all day. Instead, she preferred sitting across the table from her clients and enjoyed the detail work of nails. In school she was exposed to airbrushing for the first time and quickly landed a job as an educator for Color Mist, an airbrushing company that has since closed its doors.

When the partners who owned Color Mist split up, one of them, James Johnson, went on to open Too Much Fun. He begged D’Agnolo to come to California and join him at the company and in January 1992 she gave in. At the time, Too Much Fun just sold fingernail decals. “After his experience with Color Mist, Jim was reluctant to delve into airbrushing again,” she explains. But D’Agnolo knew they had to. “Everyone who read the books I wrote on airbrushing asked if I offered classes. The problem was I had tried lots of companies’ products but wasn’t satisfied with what they were offering. I told Jim we needed to get back into it,” she says. So Too Much Fun added airbrushing products to its line, as well as precut masks for airbrushing that D’Agnolo designs on the computer.