Nails 101: A Student Blog

Week 2: Manis, Pedis, and Initiation

by NAILS Magazine | May 18, 2012 | Bookmark +

Well my fellow nail lovers, this has been a very busy week. We learned and performed manicures and pedicures. The manis were such a blast! I really enjoyed performing them (not so much getting them). I can see how a really great system for set-up, procedure, and take-down is a must! There are so many things to get together and make sure everything is cleaned and disinfected properly. Then you actually have to pretend you are not completely frightened when you do your first one! Pedicures on the other hand, well, we have started off on the wrong foot (nail humor LOL). But I need to give you a little bit of back-story and a bit of “he said, she said” to really get my point across.

At the beginning of the week, our teacher was telling us the reasoning behind why she has never and will never put acrylic on toes. It all boils down to a religious upkeep and kissing closed toed shoes because it is so much harder to keep acrylic-covered toes undamaged from injury (think how often you stub your toe) and very clean since we walk and sweat in our socks. Forgive me if I have misstated some of the above and please do correct me if I did get it wrong. But from what I was taught and then what I saw today has me leaning very far away from doing this service on anyone. 

Tonight I did my very first pedicure on a fellow student. She had acrylic toenails at one point and something, not sure what, went wrong with them. They were so damaged I was completely terrified to work on her and made the teacher hover over me the whole time. What if I did something that made it worse? It was kind of a rough intro into pedicures.

I was trying so hard not to make my fellow student feel bad but I was scared to work on her and I even tried to get out of it until I had experience with a more normal foot. The double whammy of the original damage from the acrylics combined with improper follow-up care has left the poor thing in bad shape. Some nails were lifting from the bed, others had thickened like crazy and all I wanted was to make her feel beautiful. Two hours later, her poor little toes are looking a thousand times better but I was very sad I couldn't make them healthier looking. So this is just phase one for helping her toenails recover. Both Mrs. Brown and my classmate were very thrilled with the results but I still feel there should have been something more I could have done for her. Side note, my teacher has worked with a podiatrist and is very picky about the feet we work on, this was not a fungus or an infection. If it had been then she would not have been serviced. I wore a mask and gloves the entire time and sterilized everything and threw all my files away as they are one-time use anyway. 

Sadly, I don’t have a photo for this week’s post. I have been studying for my second test (I aced the first.), practicing techniques and doing services on every hand or foot I can kidnap. I will try to get a photo of the full class with our teacher so you can all see the lovely ladies I am learning my dream career with.

Anyone have any comments, concerns, or knowledge they would like to share with me on acrylics on toenails? I like to know every side before I write something off, but you have to admit today was a very rough day. Next week we are starting on clients!

— Mary

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