Nails Magazine

DEC 2012

Magazine for the professional nail industry.

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The great windfall of revenue soak-off gel-polishes have brought to salons has become endangered by a rash of improper removal techniques that are leaving clients unsatisfi ed with their results — and they're telling their friends about it. BY TIM CROWLEY minutes and they're just scraping them off." Soak-off gel-polish is designed to soak off quickly and easily. But some nail techs cut the full soak-off time short because they think if they can remove the product quickly, even if resorting to a little force, then the nail is OK for another application and they've shaved some time off their total application procedure. Danielle Candido is the northeast regional manager of education for Hand & Nail Harmony, and she says that nail techs need to heed to the manufacturer's recommended soak- off times, while still understanding that some clients may require a bit more time for an ef⇒ cient soak-off procedure. A TRAINED EYE "If your client is wearing her gel-polish for a full 21 days or longer, she might need a little more time to soak to fully get the product off," Candido says. "It really takes an educated nail tech to know that if she unwraps the ⇒ ngers and begins to take off the gel-polish and sees it is holding or snag- ging a little, then she needs to reapply the wraps and let the removal solution or acetone sit on the gel-polish a few minutes more." Some gel-polish manufacturers advise that a soft tool like an orangewood stick be used to help gently push off the gel- polish after it has been soaked for an appropriate length of time, but that it should require little to no pressure at all to slough off the nail. The goal is to keep the natural nail plate ⇒ rmly intact and healthy for its next application. "If just running the orangewood stick down the nail isn't enough, then you need to reapply the remover and wraps," says Candido. For other gel-polish lines, that do not recommend a removal White spots on nails after a gel-polish removal are the tell-tale sign that the gel-polish was removed with too much force and that damage has been done to the natural nail plate. tool, they advise that removing gel-polish should come as easy as simply twisting off the soak-off wrap with a little pressure from the technician's ⇒ ngers. Doug Schoon adds, "If a technician does anything that is harmful to the natural nail, she is not doing her job. These are nail enhancements not replacements." STOPPING THE PROBLEM Schoon notes that the recent advent of new gel-polish lines poses a unique challenge for nail techs. Traditionally, nail techs would only soak-off the entirety of an enhancement product maybe at most twice a year. The product is typically left on the nail and as it grows out, the new fresh nail plate at the base of the cuticle is prepped and ⇒ lled. Now, nail techs are being asked to remove the entirety of 3 Do not apply the gel-polish too thickly. Gel-polish is meant to be a thin color coat similar to a traditional polish lacquer coat. The thicker the gel-polish, the lon- ger you have to soak to properly remove. 4 Use the fi nger wrapping technique over soaking the nails in a bowl. Acetone does have a dehydrating eff ect on skin so you want to minimize the contact between the two as much as possible, which the wrap- ping method does. Plus, it allows you to check one nail and see if it the gel-polish is ready for removal while all the other fi ngers are still wrapped. 5 Be gentle. Remember that the gel-polish should come off very easily, and if you need to use an orangewood stick, it should be used gently to remove the gel-polish without prying or scraping. >>> DECEMBER 2012 | NAILS MAGAZINE | 125

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