Hi, I’m Nia, a nail artist at the Erwin Gomez Salon & Spa.

Today we’ve been going over at the basic steps to manicuring. Now, I am going to remove the client s hands that had been soaking from three to five minutes. I’m going to take you through cleaning under the client s nails; you want to do this in a gentle fashion because you don’t want to injure the client s nails underneath. Now, I am going to take you through pushing back the cuticle. Again, you want to push back in a gentle fashion, because you do not want to injure the top of her nail bed or her cuticle. Pushing back the cuticle allows the nail bed to breathe and your nails to grow healthy. After you push back the cuticle, you want to remove any dead and non living tissue from around the nail. Keep in mind not to cut too deep, because if you do, you can cause nicking the client and bleeding.

Again, you only want to remove nonliving tissue, from around the nail and cuticle. After you’ve pushed back and cleaned the remaining skin from around the nail and cuticle, I’m going to show you how to apply the cuticle oil to the nail bed and the cuticle. Gently apply the cuticle oil to the cuticle. Once the cuticle oil is on the nail and the cuticle, you want to gently rub it onto the nail bed. This allows your cuticle and nails to get conditioned by the oil.

Coming up next, I’m going to go through cleaning of the nail bed, applying the Chip Skip, the base, the polish and the top coat.