The Learning Through Experience

Today I went to the nail studio, where I got to learn lots of things by experiencing them.

It was a slow day. I mean really slow. The first half hour I spent staring at the ceiling and trying to find things to do. There weren't any. No customers, no dusting, no dishes, nothing. S. was doing the sweeping, and there's only one brush.

When customers finally did show up, I offered drinks, I watched, I was sociable, the whole nine yards. I fetched, returned and wiped clean. There was so little to do, I wasn't even rushed.

But on to the learning.

First, S. asked what had happened to my nails. I said I'd filed the gel off. She wanted to see, so I showed my hands. She mentioned I'd gone too rough on it and damaged my nails, they were all red. I didn't see anything, and how did you know they were damaged? She squeezed my pinkie nail gently. I nearly hit the ceiling. Ouch! I later saw, in sunlight (rather than the harsh halogen lamps from the studio) that there were indeed red blots under my fingernails. I am not getting new gel until they've healed, which might take the very professional diagnosed time of 'a while'. I'm agreeing. I can't scratch myself without hurting my nails right now.

The day got slower still. J. called me over to do the base coats on her nails. Oh, and file off the gel already on there. This was after S. demonstrated how magnificently I'd done on my own nails. J. spent a lot of time patiently explaining I was partly filing her skin. I got most of the techniques fairly quickly, but I was still hitting her cuticles. After three fingers of this, I figured out I knew when I was hitting it if I put my thumb on the cuticle. My file couldn't go in there, I couldn't file into the skin. If I did go that way, I bumped into my thumb. It's not cheating if you learn from it. The base coats were easy peasy lemon squeezy compared to the filing.

There was still nothing to do, so I went to I., who was sticking nails on gel pots and coloring them. There I learned that tip glue only dries quickly when warmth is applied. And it sticks to your fingers like, well, glue. I was covered in it ere long, and still I couldn't get I.'s technique to work. Then I saw her correct my half-succeeded attempts and figured I could just put the nail on, glue under the little gaps, and the shape of the nail would suck the glue to where I needed it. Brilliant!

The nails took a while in drying, but we got around to putting gels on, anyway. I learned I put on way too much and that we do not want half-open foils on tiny gel pots if we want to work cleanly. Also, foils on open gel pots get messy. Really, really messy. By the time I got home, I was gelled, glued and covered in tip dust.

Don't worry, most of it came off.