Starting A Home Based Nail Technician Business

Nail Technician as a career has only become popular over the past few years. Prior to that, people would tend to take care of their manicure at home and only have a professional salon manicure for special occasions such as weddings and other important social and business gatherings. Then acrylic nail extensions became available and everything changed.

As well as acrylic and gel nail extensions, there are nail tips and all kinds of artistic embellishment available. The elegant extended fingernails can be studded with rhinestones, dotted with glitter or painted with seasonal pictures. It is no longer simply a matter of choosing a color for your nail polish.

There is enormous potential for earning money as a self-employed nail technician. If you pass by a local nail salon, you will notice they are busy all day long and you will find there is a waiting list if you want to make an appointment to have your nails treated. Starting your own home based business as a nail technician will give you much more control and flexibility in your working hours than you would have if you worked for someone else in their salon.

If you offer a nail design service from home, you can offer three things that will put you ahead of the salons:

1. Flexible hours. You can offer evening and weekend appointments for people who are at work during the day or want to get their nails done when their partner is at home to look after the children. You can also offer an emergency repair service.

2. Discounted rates. Fancy fingernails are not cheap to maintain but your overheads will be far lower than those of a salon owner. You can, therefore, compete with the salons on price and still make a good profit.

3. Mobile service. To put yourself even further ahead of the salons, you can offer a mobile nail technician service. This will be a valuable service for people such as mothers who don't want to take young children to a salon, disabled people who find travelling difficult and anyone where transport would be a problem or parking a nuisance.

The basic equipment you will need to work from home as a nail technician is not expensive and, due to the popularity of nail extensions, supplies are readily available and can be purchased conveniently online. You should always use the best quality products. If you are running your own nail technician business from home, you will have little in the way of overheads, so there is no need to scrimp on quality. Using the services of a nail technician is a luxury and your customers will demand top quality products as part of the experience. Using poorer quality materials would be a false economy because they can result in a poor end product. Always remember that the best form of advertising is personal recommendation. Word of mouth can make or break your business. You want your customers to be satisfied with your service so that they will recommend you to their friends. If you make the mistake of using cheap products which give a customer an unsatisfactory experience just once, that will very likely be the last time that customer or any of her friends will use your services.

Training is the most expensive part of starting a nail design home business but it is absolutely essential. In most parts of the United States and the UK, it is illegal to practice as a nail technician without a licence from your home State or Local Authority. To obtain a licence you must be able to show you have attained a recognised qualification. Having a Certificate to show you have completed a professional course will also add to your credibility as a qualified technician with customers. Training is also vital for reasons of safety and the future of your business. Failure to undertake a proper training course is dangerous to you as well as to your customers. Apart from the obvious danger of leaving a customer with a manicure that will disintegrate within a few days, there is the far greater danger that you might cause horrible ugly (and possibly permanent) damage to a customer's natural nails. All you are likely to earn that way is a bad reputation and a law suit.

If you have never seen what fungal nail infections look like, do a search on the Internet and have a look at some pictures. You will then understand why customers would sue you for damages. It would be highly irresponsible to risk inflicting this sort of damage on anyone, so make sure you take a proper training course and use top quality materials. Remember, business is about competition, so you want to offer the best service you possibly can. A good reputation will be your key to building a loyal customer base who will recommend you to their friends and family.

As the demand for nail technician training has increased, the number of centers offering training courses has also increased but they are not all Government accredited educational institutions. Check, when choosing a nail technicial training center, to make sure the course on offer will lead to a genuine certificate of qualification and not merely a diploma that just verifies you have completed a training course at the establishment.