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• July, 2010 (6)
• June, 2010 (7)
• May, 2010 (8)
• April, 2010 (9)
• March, 2010 (9)
• February, 2010 (8)
• January, 2010 (8)
• December, 2009 (2)

• IBS Las Vegas
• ISSE Long Beach
• Premiere Orlando

• 365 Days of Nail Art
• Blueprint of a First Year
• From the Editors
• Healthy Tech Talk
• Maggie Rants [and Raves]
• Nails 101: A Student Blog
• The Coaching Chronicles
• Viet [Salon] Voice

• About Lynn

To commit literally means: to pledge or assign to some particular course or use.

But what does that really mean for a nail competitor?

Every person is different and has different desires. For me, to commit to becoming the best was an ever evolving commitment with one exception — I wanted to be a World Champion. Now let me tell you that did not happen as easily as it sounds. There where set backs almost everywhere I turned. But I persisted. I had made a commitment to myself and my family that I would succeed.

And succeed I did. Through all the trials and tribulations, I continued to practice and learn and compete, with much success. Now here I am telling you to do it, lol.

Like your marriage or health or kids, to commit to something means to give it your full attention. And when it comes to competing, that is exactly what you must do if you want to be the best. You must commit to yourself to compete, whenever you can. You must commit to not give up in the face of adversity. You must commit to keep going, no matter what, until you reach your goals. Commit to winning.

Be fearless!

— Lynn

I get asked this a lot: “Are you going to be giving any classes in my area?”

You know, with all the education available out there, I think there are ample avenues for manicurists/competitors to get the education they need. I’m often bombarded with event notifications from Facebook advertising one class or another. I’ve even used that one.

The backs of the industry magazines have lists of upcoming classes and events. Or there are many different DVDs to choose from. And if I feel like I haven’t been offered any intriguing education in a while, I can always search Google or YouTube. And yet, I still see nail enhancements that are less than acceptable especially for a nail competition.

I think on my Facebook page alone, there must be some good examples of what is required for a competition-style nail enhancement. Not to mention the competition homepage with its page after page of examples.

But OK then, to answer the question: “Yes, I teach classes.”

In your area?

Well, that is negotiable.

Is it free?

No way.

Cheap then?

Mmm, that’s relative.

Like I’ve said before, you can spend a whole lot of money competing and not winning, or you could spend comparatively less and maybe not start winning right away, but definitely not make novice mistakes that cost you a bundle.

The point is that if you want to be a top competitor, you must learn. And if you want to learn from me, I’m here. You can call me or send me an e-mail. And watch for me coming soon — live on the Internet (wink).

— Lynn

I saw a post on Facebook recently from Hannah saying that NAILS Magazine was having a brainstorming session for new topics for the next year and asked all their Facebook friends for their input.

I started doing some brainstorming myself and came up with a few ideas of my own. However, most of those ideas, I think may be too controversial for the magazine.

One question that I have is why are the prizes in nail competitions so low? When I went to my first competition back in ’91 (I did not compete, I was a model), the 1^st place prize at the WINBA was, I think, $10,000, an 8-ft. trophy, a solid gold ring, and a trip for two to Hawaii!

Maybe it was $5,000? Maybe someone else remembers better than I do? But I do remember being shocked by the prizes. Who won that one? Mr. Tom Holcomb. Maybe he’ll read this and weigh in on it? One could only hope.

But my point is that after almost two decades of advancements in nail enhancements, education and economy, why have the prizes become virtually non-existent? $500 for 1^st place now? Barely a fraction of what the prize used to be.

I know that some people would say the reason for the small prizes are directly related to the lack of entries. I think it is the other way around. The lack of entries is because the prizes are so low. Raise the prize money to $5,000 and watch the competitors stampede to the arena.

That’s my two cents worth.

— Lynn

With this big lull in competitions right now, I’m finding it hard to fill space here. I suppose if I wanted to compete some more this year, I could go over seas but I can’t find anything that I’m really interested in competing at. I know a lot of people think that I should go to the Nailympics in London. But I won’t (well, won’t is a very strong word, how about “I’d prefer not to and if I’m paying for it, I won’t,”) I’m not happy with their setup and that’s all I’m going to say about that.

But that doesn’t mean that I won’t encourage other competitors to go out and find some competitions to attend. I know that here in the US, we only have a few events per year, but in other countries, you could find competitions almost every month. Just yesterday for instance, I found a website advertising the Scottish Nail Championships. Just because it says “Scottish” doesn’t mean Americans, or anyone else for that matter, could not attend.

When I was first building my competition reputation, I traveled to four competitions in Canada in one year. Here’s a funny side note....At the time, you could still drive across the border from the US into Canada or Mexico without a passport. But instead of just biting the bullet and getting my passport, I would fly to an airport that was close to the Canadian border, rent a car and drive across to whatever competition it was. I actually made fabulous trips out of that. One of my most memorable trips to Canada was when I competed in Toronto. I flew into Buffalo, N.Y., and drove over Niagara Falls. What a beautiful trip! My only regret was that I made that trip by myself, but I met some very nice Canadians who offered to take my picture by the Falls. I won that competition by the way.

So if you want to keep your skills up during this low period (if you are here in the US), and you can afford it, don’t hesitate to go to another country to compete. My only warning would be to stay away from competitions where one or more of the judges are launching a product line with a competitor in the arena.

Peace out.

— Lynn

I enjoy writing this blog. It gives me an opportunity to offer you my point of view and opinions on the state of competitions these days. I say “these days” because over the last 20 years, competitions have changed a lot. As a matter of fact, the entire nail industry has changed a lot.

Anyways, today I’m going a little off topic to write about some absurdities that I see associated with the beauty industry as a whole. For instance, did you know that in the state of California you must have a license issued by the state just to file a persons nails with an emery board but you do not need one in order to put a tattoo (permanent make up included) on that same person? Wow! Talk about permanent!

I mean, if you cause damage to someone’s fingernails with a bad set of enhancements, in four months those nails have completely grown out and the damage is gone, but if your “tattoo/make-up artist” is not so skilled, you must pay thousands of dollars for laser removal and risk permanent scarring. That’s absurd. And let’s not even talk about body piercings!

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not an advocate for more licensing, (in fact, I know this will cause an uproar, but I think less would be better, but that is an entirely different rant). I just think that it is absurd for people to think that a piece of paper is going to protect them when education, on the side of the manicurist and customer alike, is the only thing that will.

And while I’m at it, why is it that tattoo artists and make-up artists and hair stylists are called such stylish artistic names and yet the beauty industry refers to manicurists as nail techs? That’s absurd. I mean as a manicurists, we do much more than just nail tech-ing (yes I said tech-ing). In the salon we offer customized care of the hands and feet, education on the products and services clients are receiving, and things they can do at home to help care for their own hands, feet, and nails (and don’t forget the occasional “psychiatric” session we offer for free).

Outside the salon, I mentor, teach, compete, and do nails for magazines and photo shoots. And, to tie this into a nail competition, I happen to be the best (World Champion) at putting on nail enhancements. I think that makes me a Manicurist Extraordinaire.

So that’s it. I know it took awhile for me to get to this but if I could talk about anything today, I’ll say that I want to be called a Manicurist Extraordinaire. I don’t think that's so absurd.

— Lynn

With Premier behind us and Sacramento still a few months away, now is the perfect time to take a step back and re-evaluate goals. If you’e anything like me, your goals are always evolving and that is a good thing because that means some of the goals that I set earlier, I either achieved or abandoned because I realized it was unattainable. Which is also good because I’ able to recognize my limitations and make adjustments.

I know I’ve already talked all about this somewhere along the line but its worth repeating — regular goal evaluations are important.

Anyways, of course there are the never changing goals like winning the championships, but there are also more subtle goals like creating the perfect c-curve. For me, one ever elusive goal is to sculpt the acrylic at the exact same thickness across the nail plate.

Maybe that needs to be relegated to the “unattainable” pile, but I think not.

Because nail competition judges are looking for the perfect nail, I still must try to obtain it. This area includes the “surface structure” category and “convex/concave” criteria. Now this is where those all important score sheets come in to play. I gather them all up, lay them side by side and look for inconsistencies. And from the looks of my score sheets, (because my scores are all over the map, as compared nail to nail and competition to competition) I still have work to do.

I guess that the perfect “surface structure” could be obtained in the filing, but who wants to file when you can sculpt?

— Lynn

I find myself looking for inspiration again. The Sacramento show is the final competition of the year and the art competition at that event is hand-painted nail art, with a “tattoo” theme. I feel like this should be an easy one — especially because I have about three and a half months to get it done. (*hmph* I hope I can get it done!)

I actually already did a tattoo design at Premiere last year. Only it was a design sculptured competition with a purple and gold theme. I searched Google for tribal dragon designs, and of course all I could find were tattoos. So I went with it.

It was a fun design and anyone who follows my blogging has probably already seen it. So I won’t bore you with it. But instead I’ll give you all (whoever you are) some advice about this competition that I had to learn the hard way.

Practice finishing the nails before you start. You don’t want to spend hours and hours painting a design only to muck it up putting on a top coat or UV sealant. Paint a sample nail with the paints you plan to use and then finish however you plan to finish. That way you have an idea of what will happen to the design in the finishing process. (I always use UV. I like the smooth finish.)

I have yet to find the perfect tip-holding apparatus. Nail glue is a pain but I’ve glued tips to orangewood sticks, stick pens, stir sticks and directly on a board so that I was able to paint the nail unencumbered. None of them are really great, but this is my advice: practice gluing on a sample nail. I actually tore a hole in one of the nails I did trying to remove the stick that I had glued to the back. You can image how I felt about that. And I wouldn’t recommend using a board. I haven’t had good experience with that.

As for the painting — well, my friends, go forth and paint.

— Lynn

You know, people say to me all the time, “I want to compete, but...” And the excuses are endless — time, family, money, etc. But I think the one excuse that irks me the most is, “I would compete, but I see the same people winning over and over and over.” Well, DUH!

Of course your top competitors are going to win time and again. What do you think makes them a top competitor? Or do you think that once they win one competition they should give it up and walk away? Just how long do you think it takes to perfect that winning competition nail?

Didn’t Kobe Bryant just win a championship ring for his thumb? (That means his fifth ring!) Do you hear other basketball teams saying “Well, we would play basketball, but we see that Kobe keeps winning so why bother?” No, you don’t hear that and you won’t hear that. That’s just ridiculous.

What you will hear them say is “We’ll be back next week, or next month, or next year.” And they return to wherever it is they came from and they train and practice and watch videos of their opponents, and (listen up here) get better. So when they do return to face their opponents, they will stand a better chance.

The point that I’m trying to make is that it shouldn’t matter whether winners keep winning, there will always be someone there to challenge them. Be it basketball or nail competitions.

There is a possibility of 100 points on the score sheet at nail competitions. The highest score I’ve ever gotten was an 87. So that means there is still room for someone to beat me... so where are you?

— Lynn

So here I am, sitting on the couch, staring at my laptop. It’s 11:35 am and this blog should have been written and submitted by now. But here I sit. Sometimes it’s hard for me to know what my loyal readers want to hear from me. I think I know what my editors want but am I writing for them? No.

So what do you, the Competition Insider reader want to know? The winners of the last competition? Sure but you can find that elsewhere. Pictures of the nails I did? Yeah yeah (sarcasm inserted). How about some real dirt this week? How about a story from the competition floor?

Hmm…

On the last day of competition at Premiere, just before the briefing for the salon success competition, my model went to get a cup of coffee from the cart and a fellow competitor got in line behind her. This competitor started to chat her up and asked her if she would take a hundred dollars to leave? My model, thinking it was a joke, giggled and politely refused, but this person upped the ante. Two hundred dollars? She smiled and said no thank you. Five hundred dollars? Wait, what?! This person had money in their hand. Imagine my shock when I heard this story! One of my “fellow competitors” was actually trying to bribe my model to leave.

Sabotage.

Is this what it has come to? I’ve become so good at what I do that the only way to beat me is through obstruction?! I’m flattered.

Fortunately for me, my model flat out refused and walked away — and as soon as the competition was over, she spilled the beans to me about her little interaction with this person. But it begs the question of integrity amongst my peers. Was it in jest? I like to think so, if not for the money in hand....

Until next time....

— Lynn

There is so much that goes on at Premiere that I could write an entire article about it. But I won’t, I'll stick to the competitions. So at Premiere, we had five competitions over two days. Mirror Image, French Twist, and Mixed Media on Sunday, and Fantasy Nail Art and Salon Success on Monday. I heard the competition director say that there were over 100 entries all together. That’s a pretty good turn out! Not as many as Vegas, but still better than in the past.

The first Premiere show that I went to was probably the largest. That was in 2005 and there was a hurricane going on then too. You might remember it, hurricane Katrina? Anyways, that was the first time I really experienced the whole top 10 elimination thing because of the amount of competitors. I think the directors had five groups of models to preview and I remember thinking that the judging was going to take forever. I didn’t realize what the eliminations were for or how they worked. I used to think that if you paid an entry fee that you should have your nails judged. But now as a seasoned competitor I understand the benefits of the eliminations.

The first benefit is the time. Judging 10 models takes much less time than if they had to judge say 40 or 50. Can you imagine being the 50th model to be judged? Logistically speaking, if each model takes only five minutes to be judged (that is so fast I would question the score) times 50 models = 250 minutes or four hours and 15 minutes!

Keeping in mind that the models just spent two-and-a-half hours modeling for the competition and they can not leave the area without an escort or eat or even just move around. I feel sorry for the models as it is. I can’t imagine having to sit there for six or seven hours.

The other benefit is if you make it in the top 10, you will have a more accurate score because the judges keep all 10 models there and decide which order they rank. This way if there is tie in the scores or a question of which nails might be better, all three judges can go back to any of the models and look again instead of just relying on score sheets.

BTW, all three judges must agree who 1st, 2nd, and 3rd are before they release the models. That equals less discrepancies and I will say I think the elimination process is an advancement in competitions over all.

— Lynn