Another week, another part of our series on Product Lifting. This time we are looking at problem nails.
Unstable Nail Plates
- Nail Biters
- The best thing you can do for a nail biter is to give them a bottle of nail & skin oil. Get them to use it every time their finger has been in their mouth
- Nail biters have only layers of nail plate left – remember the nail plate is in perpetual motion 24/7. If you have been to the seaside arcade with the penny machines that push the top coin into the drop tray – the nail plate cells work in the same way. Like an escalator in a store. Your product will always lift somewhere, and your client will always rip the rest off with their teeth.
The nails in the photo above took 11 months of lots of quality oil & lotion, and eventually product treatment. But now these nail plates are ready for any product or no product. That’s a huge win for your salon.
- Nail plate filed too thin
- This creates an unstable nail plate at the free edge but also a huge problem when the nail grows.
- Yellow arrow: A normal ridge in the nail plate, not pretty but we can deal with it.
- Blue arrow: Gouged out nail plate (the arrows showing the same position at a different angle). The problem here is not only that your product will lift but its shredded. Pocket lifting is possible here too if we put product on this now.
- Orange arrow: Gouged out nail plate (the arrows showing the same position at a different angle)
- Red arrow: The amount of nail plate filled thin that needs to grow out before you can do anything with artificial nail product.
Product lifting is almost guaranteed and worse still, this client probably wants these ugly nails covered so the look amazing even if they are not. Explain how you’re going to solve the problem and why putting product on this nail plate is not a smart thing to do. The chances of a nail plate infection caused by WSO or PA is waiting to happen and any product you do apply will likely lift. That would be a waste of your time and a waste of your client’s money.
- Green arrow: Old filing damage growing out
- Yellow arrow: Older file damage growing out
- Red arrow: The amount of time between nail service is visible. If this nail plate grows at a rate of 1mm every 10 days then there was about 25 days between visits to the nail salon.
Nail Biters
- Insufficient nail plate to place product
- Nail biters just keep on biting.
- Trying to place nail products on a few millimeters of nail plate will result in tears and a never-ending repair work. (photo below)
Recovered nail plate ready for product (photo below). The client can still use more oil to help the proximal nail folds recover from keratinization. However, the progress is obvious. Now you won’t have a problem with product lifting, and the client can see the advantages of not biting.
Using tips on your nail biter:
I know a lot of nail techs do use tips on nail biting clients but try to resist the pressure. Don’t be afraid they will go to another salon, explain the advantages of not doing it.
Tips are a great tool in nail world, but once your nail biter gets their teeth underneath it, they will just rip it right off. This will cause even more damage to the natural nail that you are trying to make look gorgeous.
Tips need glue to adhere to the natural nail. Glue contains cyano-acrylates that are allergens if they come into contact with the skin and the chances of that happening with 1/3 of a nail plate to work with are high.
Also, all that damaged stratum corneum around the proximal nail fold – nightmare for perfect product placement with lifting being the inevitable result.
Oil, oil, and more oil – give it 6 weeks then strut your nail stuff!Remember – A temporary fix is not a real fix.
Check out parts 1 and 2:
Product Lifting – Part 1
Product Lifting – Part 2
