Please Be Carefull

You may think I have posted this page to convince you to come to me, well to be honest that is true to an extent, but not for the reasons you might think. Please take the time to read this page and seriously consider your options.

You may wonder why you should pay £25 upwards for a set of nails when you can go to a salon in the high street and get a set for £20.00. Why are they £20 well consider what your getting for your money. Over the last few years many nails only salons have sprung up offering very low priced acrylic nails. Please be very careful if you chose to have your nails done in one of these salons. Not all, but a lot of these cheap nail bars use products that is dangerous if inhaled and can also be very harmful to your nail beds. As a customer of these nail bars you will be unaware of the product used, but you may notice some of the signs.

The technicians will be wearing face masks. This is standard practice but for these nail bars it is for another reason, you will probably notice a strong smell to the salon that could be described as acidic.

You may notice that they are using drills or electric files to shape and file your nails, instead of working with hand files. Don't confuse this with using an electric file or drill for removing excess acrylic when applying a set of nails

The nails will be cheap, around £15 - £20 a set.

The nails are nearly always hard to remove and sometime have to be removed by an electric file.

The most obvious sign is that the nail technician will not be able to tell you anything about the procedure or what the products are.

They will always try and get you to have a new set of nails as opposed to an infill; the main reason is the nails will probably turn an ugly yellow after a few weeks.

OK so why they are cheaper, well a number of reason really, cheaper unqualified labour but most importantly the materials and chemicals they are using. Let me explain a little about these chemicals

Acrylic is a form of plastic and acrylic nails and Infill's a made and constructed by using two substances - a liquid and a powder which form together to create the acrylic nails. The correct liquid used for nails contains a substance called EMA (Ethyl Methacrylate), but there is another liquid that can also be used this is called MMA (Methyl Methacrylate). MMA liquid is very similar to EMA (apart from a carbon and couple of hydrogen atoms) but it is a lot cheaper, this is another factor in why the nails are cheap.

Why should MMA liquid not be used for nails, well believe it or not it is for the dental industry (where acrylic nails originated from). It is used to make crowns for your teeth. However it would never come into contact with your skin in its liquid and vapour form. What can happen, well you may get a serious adverse skin reactions or permanent nail deformities these are only part of the risks of using MMA. Long term use of MMA may lead to permanent damage to the respiratory system (which is why you see the nail technicians wearing face masks).

How can you tell well an MMA extension is likely to be harder more rigid, good some of you might think well actually no. MMA extensions resist breaking if accidentally caught or jammed. This can lead to very painful breakages of the natural nail plate near the cuticle which may result in sever infections. Please do not think the nails are good because they are strong, nail extensions should be treated as your own nails. Breakages are a common occurrence of natural nails. You want to be left with a nail, all be it a broken one, but one which will grow back healthily.

I am not saying all nail bars are bad but with a few simple questions to the people that are going to do you nails will tell you all you need to know. Remember they don't care what happens to you nails, they are probably not even aware that what they are using is dangerous to you and to them.

The Choice Is Yours But Don't Say I Did Not Warn You