Polish Primer

As I’ve mentioned before, I plan to start offering classes next year. And as I write the curriculum for those classes, I’m astounded at how little competition training there is available for would-be competitors. Not just a lack of classes but also a lack of really good techniques, for example — polishing. Polishing is a criteria for most competitions and yet through all of my training, I never once heard someone train on the subject. It was always “Then you do your polished hand...” I remember telling myself that the “instructor” would certainly cover that in the future.

 

No. Not ever.

 

So with this revelation, I’ve decided to make it a part of my curriculum. And I’ll give you some of it now.

 

Polish can be very temperamental. Especially if you’re sitting where air is blowing, i.e. in front of a fan or under an air conditioning vent.

So these are things that you want to avoid in competition. Next, you want to choose a polish that has good coverage. I’m not a chemist so I couldn’t tell you what makes one red polish cover better than another but I can tell you that there are polishes out there that have better color and coverage than the rest. So go on the hunt and when you find one or more that you like, make sure you test it in a simulated competition (that means practice with it.)

 

Things you want to look for — the polish should be streak free, have a big enough cap to hold comfortably, and nice straight bristles without any strays poking out at the bottom. Oh yeah, and absolutely no glitter, frost, or shimmer allowed. As for the polishing techniques...well you’ll have to wait for the training.

 

Happy polishing

 

— Lynn