Jenna: Hey guys! Welcome to Episode 2 - How to choose the right nail enhancements  for  your lifestyle?

This podcast is really important to me because I think that it's gonna save you a lot of time and trouble matching you with the right services so that you have the best results and you don't have to worry about modifying your lifestyle to suit your beauty needs which is really what we're trying to avoid. We're trying to create ease and enjoyment basically out of these services and not hassles. 

So starting by light duty lifestyle, I would say that this does not encompass most people in the Kootenays. This would be someone who doesn't do their own dishes, they don't ever touch tools, they don't do very many active things. This person would be best suited for a regular nail polish. Regular nail polish can be really great on the feet. For some reason on the feet regular nail polish will last forever. The only time gel polish would be way more beneficial probably is when you're ready to do something right away after your pedicure and you don't want to worry about stuffing your foot into something like a boot or shoe after. Just get the gel polish and then you're done. Smudge free you're ready to go you can do anything right after but when you have regular nail polish on that pedicure, you do have to wear those pedi flip flops you have to bring some sandals probably walk out into the snow and your sandals. Maybe after all that you're getting your nail smudged after that. So I would recommend the gel polish instead of the regular polish in the winter especially but regular polish will last you just as long.

On to the next lifestyle -  medium duty I would say this person does like some dishes themselves but they like do wear gloves. Not really doing a ton of active things. They don't pick their nails ever. That person could get a gel polish and last perhaps up to a week. It's not a very durable service. A lot of people will add some sort of like a layer underneath for protection - some sort of a builder gel or something like that. And you won't even know if you're going to another place and that's just to prolong the application. At Elevate, we've separated that into a different category and we consider that a sculpted gel nail so when you're getting a gel polish at Elevate, you're getting a traditional gel polish with no builder layer underneath. So the nail will still flex. It is still prone to chipping. It's just going to give you a little bit more of a durable layer than the traditional polish which is going to maybe give you one or two days. So both of these services can be really great for if you're doing like one day event or like you just want your nails done for like a couple days you don't want them done like consistently looking good for like two to three weeks. So I would say that that does not encompass most of our clientele. 

I do see lots of people booking in for these services and then they're like oh, well just try the thing that's more suited to me next time. But I would really rather create a situation where people are educated on what would last them the best and work best for their lifestyle. So that's why I created this podcast episode to just shed some light on this because most of the time when we go in, we don't really know what service we're getting. They'll just do something and they will do it without telling us and so we just don't really know what we're getting and what we need to order in order to suit our lifestyle. 

So the third would be like highly active and I would say that encompasses most of us in the Kootenays. Lots of girls in the Kootenays We live very gender neutral lifestyles, which means we might be like working with tools, we might be on a motorbike. We are definitely very active I think in the Kootenays and we don't want to be worrying about whether our nails are going to break etc. So that would be best suited for the sculpted gel or sculpted acrylic categories. You'll find with a sculpted gel, you will have a hard layer but it will be flexible so if your nails flexing at all that's likely gel, sculpted gel. Whereas the acrylic there is basically no flex at all it is super, super, super strong. It's like the strongest layer that you can have on your nails. Which also makes them pretty impervious to breaking and chipping etc. You still have to watch for not soaking your hands in water because that will create your natural nail to expand. And of course because we're using artificial product on top that does not expand the same way as the natural nail does that will cause lifting. But when you get a sculpted gel or especially in a sculpted acrylic nail you can expect those nails to basically be growing out with your natural nails, two to three weeks for sure of where depending on how fast your nails grow basically. So say you were doing just a one or two day event you did not want your nails done afterwards and you don't want to go into professionally have them removed,  maybe it's not the best service for you. 

But if you just want like balm nails that are going to look good, no matter what you're doing, I would choose sculpted acrylic. In the past, acrylics gotten a really really bad rap. And it's mostly because the old school acrylics are super chemi. They are super, super chemi and smelly. If you're doing acrylics in a salon or if you're sitting there for a while. You might even feel like “Geez, should I be getting my car after I get this service?” So that's how chemi it used to be and at Elevate we have nailed down product application of one of the best odorless products on the market and I can attest for the strength of this product line. I have been using it myself. I'm crazy hard on my nails. I am an electrician by trade and I do basically whatever I want with my nails and usually I'm coming in with all my nails intact, well I have to come every two weeks because my nails do grow so fast and I just don't like to grow. But I can make it through weeks as well. And basically they're not cracked or anything.

With this new product it's kind of removed that barrier of why we did not use acrylic in the past. It’s  kind of really opened that door again for us and even though it's gotten that bad rap in the past I would really encourage that if you've never tried to sculpted acrylic nail and you were just looking for the strongest - most longest lasting nail that's going to look amazing, no matter what you're doing with your lifestyle. I would definitely pick the sculpted acrylic and so if you were not keeping your acrylics you can have the option of soaking them off with acetone at home. Definitely a little bit more of a lengthy procedure. Or you can file them off yourself or you can come in and get them professionally removed. If you are doing regular maintenance of your nails, proper maintenance, so you're not letting a bunch of lifting happen, that can cause bacteria to grow or other nasty things to grow underneath your nails. You're not going to need that time they say “Oh! Let your nails breathe”. You don't need to let your nails breathe. They are a dead thing growing just like hair. Hair doesn't breathe either. It's just that if you do have a bunch of neglected areas of your nails, they can grow things and they can need to have a break because there's something bad happening under there. With proper maintenance of your nails this is not an issue so regular fills every two to three weeks not pushing to like four or five weeks. Because that's when the brakes bad breaks happen and bad lifting happens which leads to bigger problems basically.

I hope that this episode has shed some light on what the differences are between these products. If there's anything I didn't cover here, please reach out to me. I would love to add that in and update this podcast so that I can really provide a lot of value to clients who are not really sure what to book in for. I want to save you time and money by being able to choose the right service from the get go. So that you can have nail enhancement that's going to really like enhance your life versus having to follow the rules that suck. Don't do this don't do that. Like no - we just want to do what we want to do and look pretty. Excited to talk to you guys about the next week. I'm going to be going over brows. If you have any other questions, shoot me a message and any other suggestions on topics you'd like me to cover. I'd really love to hear about that. So hope you have a great day and we'll see you in the next episode.

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