The Moment Suprême

Cindy is acting weird today and I'm worried. And Sis liked my cookies. Not what I wanted to talk about, but still. Consider it said.

So today was THE day. No, not the day in which I got a job, sadly, but a nice day all the same. J. decided, after I helped clean and watched her and a client for about an hour, that today was the day I got to sit behind a table and try stuff.

There was a free table. The table, however, was free of tools. And I didn't have gels. It took about fifteen minutes to assemble mostly everything. S. helped, I helped, it still took a long while. I got a bitchin' UV machine with leopard print and was allowed to go bananas on practice nails.

At this point I had sealing gel and building gel. No base gel. No color gel. I could basically see if I could work a gel brush, since both are transparent and I only knew what to do with one of them.  Base gel you can skip if truly necessary, but colors... Well...

I asked if, by any chance, there had been ordered too much of one color, or a particular color needed using or--at this point J. was looking at me like I'd grown an extra head. I tried to explain that I didn't want to screw up with and hog the pretty colors that clients might want at some point during my expedition. J. still didn't understand what the problem with that was. Everyone nabs stuff from everyone in the studio. Whether they're using it or not at the moment is usually far beside the point. I insisted I'd tip over a jar or end up using half of one on a nail by mistake(s) and J. relented. She'd remembered some gels she'd bought, opened and subsequently rarely ever used.

I got an entire display case of colors. For me. No one wanted my old, dusty gels, so I was free to go utterly and completely insane with them. I tried opening one. It had dried shut. Going utterly and completely insane was put on hold as I tried to find a gel that would open. There were several, I would discover, but, well, I pretty much threw myself at the first color that opened. It was an almost adulterous red.

In all my enthusiasm, I tried applying it onto an untreated artificial nail. Yeah. I was quickly directed towards a bottle of cleaner-substitute (still no cleaner delivered) I'd been provided with and a nail file. First rule of Nail Studio is You Shall Abrade Up The Wazoo.  My files were crappy, but I didn't know this yet. They made abrasions, so I threw myself on them. Make a nail red. Throw it into the light box. Stare in awe for two minutes. Take it out. Add another layer. Stare. Realise you need more colors.

My first tries were... Well, crappy. Firstly, they were my first tries. Secondly, my color combinations were schizofrenic in a depressing kind of way. Thirdly, I was using the wrong tools and forgetting about which colors coated better than others.

I eventually realised that the tiny, short brush was pretty much useless. And there's only so much a gel brush can do. So I tried the swirl tool. It resisted momentarily, but eventually gave in and did what I wanted.

Not something I could say about the stamping kit. I was doing everything right: paint, scrape, transfer, stamp, work fast all the time. The nail I was working on was bumpy and my stamping pad was oily, two things I took a very long time in figuring out. I got two stamps on a nail in about an hour. In the mean while, I'd even wrangled the useless brush into something approaching submission and made a nail consisting of five coats of gold sparkles with purple squiggles on top. J. had laughingly said it was fun to watch me 'destroy artificial nails with a file' as I prepared that one for a few coats of paint. Crappy nail file and unwielding nail on a stick do not make for elegant working habits. I eventually decided the stamping kit could suck it and added some silver details that blended well with the light blue stamping varnish I was using. At this point I was nearly high on nail polish remover fumes, a side effect from the stamping.

I went back to happily experimenting with the swirl tool, my new bestest friend, when J. called me over and scared the pee out of me. "Do my nails."

At this point, I'd had a grand total of two hours of practical experience. She was unveiling the most delicious, hand-made colors that needed testing, displayed in a case that just begged for me to screw up and put my elbow in it during an unguarded moment. I kept my rather undignified exclamation to myself, whimpered, and went over there.

I still don't have long nails, so I got a rosewood stick for poking and scraping. She'd done her left hand and I got to do the right. Everyone said gel burned like napalm if it got onto your skin. I had horror visions of second degree burns on J.'s hands (and thus livelihood) due to my incompetence. She was happily mixing her gels, uncorncerned by any serious injuries I could inflict here.

I discovered something as soon as J. instructed me to apply base gel. Artificial nails on sticks suck for learning stuff. Real hands are much better. Their nails arch, their fingers flex, you can use both hands at the same time... Whichever idiot came up with nails on sticks was insane.

I got the base gel right. The building gel, I missed a few spots with, but I made up for that by not ever hitting skin with the gels. And the color gel smile lines and French tips were--dare I say it--easy.

J.'s next customer was about to come in, though, so she let me finish up a single nail. I used the long, thin pencil to apply the strokes she wanted over the tips and the swirl tool for the dots. It wasn't as good as J.'s example, but it was very good for someone who hadn't eaten in six hours and had no idea what she was doing. J. is a very good teacher.

I even relaxed so much I started chatting with J., which turned into digging myself into a hole, though I didn't realise this yet. Somewhere in the conversation, I mentioned that I wondered why everyone said getting gel nails hurt.

I got sent back to my table with the news J. would do my nails after she finished with her customer, and I could try abrading my own nails and filing them into shape. Uhm...

I filed. I abraded. J. was still busy. I got base gel and applied it without incident on both hands. I discovered why people said it hurt to get gel nails: the UV gel undergoes an exothermic reaction directly propotionate to the thickness of the applied gel as it gathers its reaction starter energy. Simple words: you have about two to four seconds of burning happning underneath your fingernails.

Base gel is thin, so I didn't have much problems with that. But I got instructed to try building gel, which gets applied in a thick layer for shaping. Ow, ow, fucking ow.

Next, I was instructed to apply 'a thin white smile line' onto my freakishly short nails. I skipped the building gel altogether on my right hand and decided to torture myself with the smile line. I failed in making it look like anything other than having dipped my fingertips in Tipp-Ex. For half an hour. Then J. became available, looked at what I was doing and took pity on me. She removed my last attempt at not covering half my nail in 'Extreme White' and started discussing my progress so far. How it was good to get your nails done on short nails at first. How it was more difficult to do it on yourself and on short nails. How I'd done a good job in not getting the gel on skin with either her or myself, and only got one bumpy nail in five. I'd learned a lot in a day.

She, however, is and remains the teacher. What I needed an hour to do by myself, she did in eight minutes flat on both hands. I am currently sporting a French manicure, and it's freaking me out slightly. My nails are Godzilla strong and the Extreme White is... Well, extremely white. It's distracting.

I got something to drink and eat at this point, having stopped working long enough to realise lunch time was two hours ago. Then I got some more water and spezi from the casino, since I'd drunk all the water and Sis wanted spezi.

I tried working with the building gel some more, but the artificial nails were not my friend. I gave up, tried swirling some gels together, failed and decided to call it a day. I was tired.

So I learned a lot today. I still can't file and to learn faster I'd need a human guinea pig to submit to possible gel burns as I try building gel. But I can apply base colors and do a few simple designs. I can work with most of the equipment. I've started.

Yay. ^-^