Questioncan you give me some short term care on manicures please as i am doing a leaflet at college for home care advise on manicures.
AnswerHi Katie,
First of all I have copied my cuticle cutting article I wrote and for your leaflet I suggest you add the following advice:
- Do not cut cuticles when not neded.
- stay away from Vaseline to soften cuticles but use EzFlow Fade away and other cuticle care products from IBD or Super Nail
- have a manicure done every two weeks
- file the nails instead of cutting them
_ use cuticle oil to keep them healthy
- use a nail treatment to strengthen your nails if they fall weak to water or cleaning agents.
Cuticle Trimming
To cut or not to cut? That depends.
There are a lot of products on the market that help us with cuticle removing without cutting. But the product cannot remove the very bad cuticle in one treatment. You need a few manicures to remove it all and make the cuticle soft again. Dasy Design uses EzFlow Fade Away Cuticle Remover, Supernail Alpha Hydroxy Cuticle Remover and ProLinc Cuticle Remover for a Manicure or Pedicure.
All the cuticle removers have the ingredient Alpha Hydroxy acids (AHAs). AHAs are well known in the cosmetics industry. They may be either naturally or synthetic. They are often found in products claiming to reduce wrinkles or the sign of aging, and improve the overall look of the skin.
Do not mix Cuticle REMOVERS with Cuticle SOFTENERS. Cuticle softeners do not contain AHAs.
The cuticle can be cut safely and there are a few tricks to do it.
First, you have to work with disinfected cuticle nippers. If your client sees you taking the nippers right out of the
disinfection solution or out of a container marked disinfected - your clients
are going to feel 100% comfortable with you cutting their cuticles.
Your cuticle nippers are for cuticle cutting only!! This way the
cuticle nippers are always sharp and they never pull the skin when trying to
cut. Be sure to always push the cuticles back before cutting. It plumps them up
and gives you a clearer vision of what work needs to be done. With
cuticle creams and lotions you are conditioning the nails and Cuticles.
Communicate with your client before the start of the manicure and ask what
she would prefer. If she has horrible cuticles and you want to cut them, then
you should explain the procedures as well as your sanitation procedures to
her so she will be more comfortable about cutting. If she is adamant about
not cutting her cuticles, respect that decision and do other things to
condition and remove instead. Explain to the client that the results of the
finished manicure may not be as good.
We prefer a cuticle cream that
dissolves, with AHA. Choose a natural nail cuticle oil like EzFlow Essential Oil or China Glaze Orange Cuticle Oil.
Push the cuticles back, and follow the steps for Manicure and Pedicure. Then take a look at what you have there as far as cuticles,
and if needed, cut them.
Problems
What do you do if you make them bleed????
First, don't panic, second, cleanse the bleeding area and throw away the
cotton or pad you used to cleanse. Position the hand with the fingers
pointing to the ceiling and try to raise the hand above the heart to let the
blood flow back towards the heart not to the finger. Once you get the
bleeding under control take some fast drying glue EzFlow Brush on Resin Surgical Glue, place a drop right on top of the bleeding and let dry.
Do not touch the tip of the glue container to the bleeding area and if you do
either throw it away or give the glue to the client. You cannot use it on
any other clients safely. Once the cut has healed the glue will naturally
fall off.
For those of you who think using glue to stop the bleeding is not good, surgeons use the same glue we use for
surgery all the time. Once the glue hits the air it starts to dry and cannot,
I repeat, cannot get into the blood stream. It dries too fast to flow.
Another issue of cutting cuticles is the issue of HIV, AIDS and Hepatitis.
You need to know the truth about it. Nothing, including
blood can live on metal implements or files after ten minutes. And unless
you become blood sisters when you cut someone, there is no risk. You have to
transmit blood from one blood stream to another to catch HIV or anything else
for that matter. So both of you have to have an open cut somewhere in order
to transmit it. What you need to know about Hepatitis is that it travels,
and HIV and AIDS do not.
So the bottom line is if you practice safe sanitation 100% of the time, you
and your clients are not at risk. Another thing to remember is that you
cannot ask someone if they have HIV or AIDS before their manicure.
greetings from Bangkok
Sylvia de Rijke
