A nail tech at a trade show told me my cuticle work was 'too polite,' and now my gel sets last an extra week | Cosmetologists - The Design Community Hub
A nail tech at a trade show told me my cuticle work was 'too polite,' and now my gel sets last an extra week
She watched me do one hand in Santa Monica and said I was nibbling instead of actually pushing the cuticle back, so I switched to a metal pusher with a curved edge and started really getting under there, and my retention went from 2 weeks to 3.
I had almost the same thing happen at a class in Dallas two years ago. The lady next to me grabbed my hand and said I was barely tapping the cuticle, not lifting the dead skin off the nail plate. Switched to a curved metal pusher and started going in at a 45 degree angle and my clients went from 10 days of wear to a solid 3 weeks. It feels wrong at first because you think you're gonna tear something, but as long as you keep it wet with slip it's fine. Biggest thing I learned is you have to get that thin clear layer off after pushing or the gel just pops right off. My old "polite" way was basically leaving a shelf of cuticle for the gel to grab onto and that shelf always fails first.