Welcome to assignment #2 in the creation of your Nail Notebook! How did your cover turn out? Did you have fun exercising your creative muscles outside of nails? I have seen pictures of some amazing covers and love all your interpretations of the assignment! (If you haven’t already started, click here and here for the assignment #1 in creating your nail notebook.) 

Something that we value in a client is education. To have educated clients is the dream of most nail professionals, wouldn’t you agree? That education is not going to happen on its own; we are responsible for putting the information out there to teach our guests how to make educated decisions in their nail care.

Part one of your assignment this week is to print out at least two educational pieces for your clients that are universal. What I mean by universal is that they are educational to anyone — no matter what brand of products you use. These handouts should be important information that everyone should know, no matter what. Here are a few links to get you started:

Articles put out by the Nail Manufacturers Council, available in several languages

www.schoonscientific.com/resources-publications-Nail-Manufacturers-Council.html

Article about MMA

beautytech.info/articles/nmc7-01.htm

Study explaining the safety of UV lamps

www.schoonscientific.com/downloads/UV-Nail-Lamp-Facts.pdf

10 Nail MYTHS to Stop Believing (from NAILS)

www.nailsmag.com/pdfs/handouts/myths.pdf

What Kind of Nails Are You Really Getting? (from NAILS)

www.nailsmag.com/pdfs/handouts/na0210clientHandout.pdf

(Editor’s note: NAILS has a number of handouts — for nail techs and clients — here.)

http://www.nailsmag.com/resources/handouts.aspx

Print at least two things that are relevant to what you do. If you offer liquid-and-powder services along with a gel polish type service then the MMA and UV lamp articles would be ideal. If you do mostly pedicures and rock star or glitter toes then the UV lamp and pedicure sanitation articles would be a good choice. After you select your two or three choices and print them, put them in the page protectors and stick them in your binder.

Part two of this assignment is taking a before and after photo of at least two types of services that you offer. It could be a before photo of naked cuticle-overrun toes and an after of meticulously pedicured toes, or a before of bitten nails and an after of your enhancement makeover. The options are only limited by the services you offer so you should be able to find something!

To get you thinking and give you an idea on photos, here are two from my photo stash. One is after wearing polish for three weeks, and one is after wearing Shellac for three weeks.

Before

After

The next set, the before photo is someone that came from another salon and had let her rebalance go past two weeks. The after photo is post rebalance. So choose two or three services that you offer and take a before and after picture in the next couple weeks.

Before 

After

Please don’t print your photos yet, we are going to do something with them, just be sure to take pictures! Natural light always works best and put your camera on the macro setting (it usually has an image of a flower) to get those close-up detailed shots. Have fun and we’ll see you in a couple weeks!

— Holly

fingernailfixer@hotmail.com

www.facebook.com/fingernailfixer