Make it work for you

Are you a good nail technician? 

It is easy to be a good nail technician, you need to know your stuff, be educated in your craft and continue with that education with skill building workshops throughout your career.  

But to be a great nail technician……That is a different question. 

Not to let fear hold you back, to relax when you apply your acrylic or gel and just ‘know’ it will be ok.  I wrote these top tips quite a while ago, I found them again whilst looking for something else and they resonated with me...reminded me actually of how it should be.

This is a top 10 list  about working smarter and learning some tricks to make your craft work for you. This little list is not about all the technical stuff, it isn’t a “do this, and you will achieve that…list”, instead it is guide, my little “notes to self” that achieves some fantastical results. 

1. Don’t think it…. just do it, enjoy the process, and live in that moment, because believe me this will show in your work. 
2. Do you over analyse your nail?  Sometimes we get stuck over thinking our designs, and before we know it we have given up before we have started, because we feel it might be too difficult, or might not be good enough.  It doesn’t matter it will be what it will be when you’re done. 
3. Don’t try and manipulate any creative process. There is no right and wrong, you can’t make any mistakes, and you’re not going to win any prizes…..so just enjoy it…find that inner child who doesn’t care what others want least of all you…and have fun!
4. We are as human’s extremely over critical, mainly of ourselves. We end up having long drawn out conversations with our selves, mostly negative.  Turn around and tell that part of you to “SHUT UP”, pop those ear plugs in……you might like this new you!
5. Don’t rush anything, don’t try and finish the nail before you have even started it.  This is my problem; I get so excited I want to see the finished product. 
6. Because you may miss opportunities to improve it along the way.   
7. The secret is to just go with the flow, and see what happens.  Sometimes the best results are born from a mistake.  
8. Have faith in your product; know what it can do for you.  Learn how your acrylic ticks and make it work for you; build a relationship out of mutual respect. 
9. Don’t….don’t copy.  Don’t take an idea from someone else and recreate it, but do….DO use someone’s work to inspire your own design. If you are unique and original you will have a style, this is what will define your work, not designs….but you will never develop a style if you copy someone else’s, and let that influence you…instead, use their designs as your muse, to wet your creative appetite to develop something fantastic.   
10. The final thing, and most important in my option is not to compare your skills and talents with others around you. As technicians we find this habit very hard to break, looking at what other people are doing and judging their talents against our own.  We just have to face it there is always going to be someone else more talented than you, it might be that they seem to be more creative than you feel, or display a unique talent that you covet. But equally there will always be those who are less than you in all these ways.  The way to find out who you are is not by comparing yourself with others, but by looking at fulfilling your own potential the best way you know how. Now ask yourself “Are you incomparably unique?”

Let me know if you have found this blog post useful and helpful, and please feel free to share it with others.  Samxxx

Independant learning - does not mean buying products.

Q.  Do I need to buy all the be creative products on Sam's class? 

A.  No. 

When I ventured out and became an independent educator nearly 5 years ago now, I wanted to focus on sharing my skills and knowledge through application and not based on products and brands.  I moved away from being a ‘sales’ tech because I was tired of the constant politics and the warped motivation behind teaching. Let me explain…..

I built my business be Inspired on the bases that each and every one of my students can do what I do with what they already have. Over time I started to collect products and develop tools to make my life easier and the job quicker, and of course these where all wanted by my students in the class. “No worries” I would say “I will get you a pack”. 

Eventually I was spending more time on the products and development and not on education where my heart lies, so that is how Jealous Cow Ltd and the Be Creative was born.  Going into partnership with Rebecca, who was already a distributor of her own nail art brand and sub distributor of Ez Flow in the UK.  We developed a business, so I could continue to educate and use what I wanted in the class, and the focus could remain on application and design not products or brands. 

Rebecca then works with all the products and ideas I come up with, we development together as a team and she is the one who distributes them.  It is testament that over the short time Be Creative has been around in the nail world we have grown with little effort, this I feel is down to the way the products are used and relate to existing core products that each of the students use, wether it be Ez flow, IBD, Young nails and ONS.  I have been asked over and again, can I please bring out a core line of gels and acrylics, But both Rebecca and I feel it is important not to confuse our ethos, which is making the nail techs life easier, bringing you things to inspire you and help you develop your own business with what you have already, supported and enhanced by Be creative. We bring you items that others don’t have. I have even suggested we are a boutique brand. 

I don’t care what you use on my class, you can bring your additives and gel paints along, I just want to show you what you can do with them. I am very interested in everyone’s products, like you I am a nail tech through and through, looking at the colours and tools to work with excites me and inspires me. I find something new, I go and buy it right away and use it. I do not judge you or tell you on the class what you can and can’t use, and if your product isn’t quite cutting the mustard, I try and give you an option to make it work for you.  Sometimes this doesn’t even include using anything I have in my own kit.  Let me give you an example, if you need a fast setting powder, so you can hit the mould-able stage quicker and have longer to work with it, but the brand you have in your kit does not allow this, by simply using some acetone on a brush, it does the job perfectly……! 

A good friend of mine a few years ago told me to always remember to do what you do for the good of the Student, not a brand or company. And this has always been my  Ethos.  Some people say that to attend my class you need to buy all my products, I promise you this is not the case. Buying the products is not necessary at all, you will be able to do everything with what you have already. I am very insistent that the class is NOT BRAND RELATED. I am an independent and fought a lot of battles to stay this way, trust me. The brand Be Creative are products that just enhance your own favorite line. 

During the class  it is all there for you to use if you want or you use the products you know and love. The class is about learning new skills and very hands on, to help you move your business forward and help improve the industry as a whole. No one ever should feel you need to purchase anything to work with on the day.