- Next free
- Two weeks, usually
- BIAB from
- £48
- Infills
- Every 3–4 weeks
- Removal
- £15 mine · £22 someone else’s
- Telephone
- 0161 477 2938
At the desk
Close enough to judge it
Every nail photo online is shot from far enough away to hide the cuticle line. Here is one taken close enough that you can see what you’d be paying for — and here is how to read it, on my work or anybody else’s.
1
2
3
reading it
A hairline of bare nail between the product and the skin, all the way round. If product is touching the cuticle it will lift there first — and uncured product on skin is the sensitising route, so this is the hygiene answer as well as the wear answer.
The product stops short of the fold on both sides and follows the curve rather than cutting across it. Flooded sidewalls are what make a set feel tight, and they are the usual reason a nail lifts at one corner within a week.
The high point of the overlay, about a third back from the free edge, where the light catches it. That is where the stress goes, so where the apex sits is the difference between four weeks and ten days — and it is the one part of the work that costs time rather than product.
Before you sit down
The three you can’t judge from a photograph
The photograph settles three things about the work. These are the three it can’t settle, because they depend on your hands. Change them and the drawing changes with them — including the one nobody puts on a website, which is what a single coat actually looks like.
Square. Suits a wide bed and shorter fingers — straight sidewalls make the plate read narrower. No added length, so it survives a keyboard. It fails at the corners: a square corner is a lever, and it finds a pocket or a car door before anything else does. Squoval. The one I file most. Square strength with the corners taken off, so it suits almost any bed and it is the least likely to catch. No added length. When it goes, it chips at the free edge — a file-and-go repair, not a break. Oval. Suits a narrow bed and long fingers; on a wide bed it reads short. About a tenth longer than your own free edge, so typing is fine. It fails by wearing thin at the tip — you will see it go translucent before it goes anywhere. Almond. Wants a long bed and a strong one. About half again as long, and you will type on the pads for a fortnight before it feels normal. It fails at the sidewall: the taper moves the stress point off the nail bed, so it snaps sideways rather than chipping. Coffin. Wants a long bed and an apex placed properly or it will not last. About two thirds again as long — the biggest jump on this list, and typing is genuinely harder. It fails at the corner of the flat tip, which chips first and then takes a crack down the sidewall with it.
01 Oat Milk — sheer builder nude. The natural nail shows through it, which is the point of it. 02 Clay — opaque gel polish, and the set drawn at the top of this page. 03 Dusty Mauve — opaque gel polish. Three thin coats rather than two thick ones; thick coats wrinkle in the lamp. 04 Ash Plum — deep, on Gel-X. Dark shades show every ridge, so the prep matters more, not less. 05 Bone Sheer — milky builder. One coat self-levels; a second only if you want it less see-through.
Finished. Two thin coats, cured sixty seconds each, then the top coat. The shine is the top coat and not the colour — which is why a set that has lost its shine has usually lost its top coat, not its polish. One coat, sheer. A sheer builder self-levels, so it does not streak — it goes patchy instead, and you can still see the plate through it. Two is the honest answer. One coat, opaque. An opaque drags, and it drags worst at the free edge. Those streaks are what you would be looking at in daylight for four weeks. Two thin, never one thick.
The bit nobody publishes
Nobody licenses nail technicians in this country. So here is everything you’d have to ask me for.
Anyone can buy a lamp and start taking bookings tomorrow — there is no register, no inspection, and no qualification you must hold. That makes what a studio publishes the only thing you can actually check.
So this is the whole protocol, in writing. If you’re comparing me with somewhere else, these are the questions worth asking them too.
Porous items are single-use. Files, buffers, sanding bands, orange sticks — binned in front of you, never the next client’s.
Metal tools are scrubbed, ultrasonic-bathed and then sealed in this pouch. Nippers, pushers, e-file bits.
Vacuum cycle, 134 °C, three minutes. The strip turns, or the load goes back through.
Opened in front of you. If it was open before you sat down, it goes back through.
Anything porous is single-use — files, buffers, sanding bands, orange sticks. Metal tools (nippers, pushers, e-file bits) are scrubbed, ultrasonic-bathed and autoclaved between every client. The pouches are dated; ask to see one.
The national standards for this trade advise against using an electric file on the natural nail, and I don’t. It removes gel and refines the surface of the product. The thinning and soreness people blame on “gel” is almost always a drill used on the nail itself.
Dermatologists have been warning for several years about rising acrylate allergy in the UK — most cases from nail and lash products, and it matters beyond your hands, because related chemicals turn up in dental fillings and some medical implants. I use HEMA-free systems, and here is the honest part: HEMA-free is lower-risk, not allergy-proof. It is also not “banned” — it is restricted to trained professionals, which is a different thing.
Ask for one if you’ve ever reacted to lash glue, dental work, or a previous set — itching, or soreness at the sides of the nail. It takes five minutes and I’d rather do it than not. Sensitisation comes from uncured product touching skin, so keeping it off the cuticle and sidewalls is the real prevention.
Gel sitting on a properly prepped nail does nothing to it. The damage comes from picking, peeling, prying, or a rushed removal. Come back for the soak-off even if you’re not rebooking — I’d rather take it off properly than hear about it later.
Free repair within seven days, unless it came off because it was picked. After that it’s £5 a nail. If a whole set lifts, something in my prep was wrong and I’ll say so.
Gel polish from fourteen with a parent in the room. No extensions under sixteen — young nail plates are thinner, and there is no version of that I’m comfortable with.
One chair
Who’s actually doing your nails
The same person every time, which is the whole point of a one-chair studio — and the reason the diary is honest about being full.
You’ll know it’s working when you stop hiding your hands in photographs.
Nine years at the desk, six of them here. I trained the long way round — VTCT Level 3 Diploma in Nail Technology, which is the one that covers hard gel, liquid and powder, electric file and advanced art, and the one insurers and associations actually recognise.
I work in builder gel and soft-gel extensions, not acrylic. That’s a preference, not a verdict — acrylic in good hands is superb, it just isn’t what I’m best at, and I’ll tell you who is if that’s what you want.
Six people a week, four days. That is the ceiling, it isn’t a marketing device, and it’s why the waiting list below is real.
- covers
- hard gel · liquid and powder · electric file · advanced art
- insured
- public liability and treatment risk
- member
- trade association — the certificate is on the wall by the door
- systems
- HEMA-free professional brands; patch test on request, free
- reference
- not printed here. A number on a web page proves nothing — ask to see the certificate itself, the way you’d ask to see a pouch.
Nadia — I wrote the protocol printed above this, and I am the one who follows it.
Demonstration document. Aster & Ash is a fictional studio built to show what this page can do; no awarding body’s certificate is reproduced here, no crest or mark is used, and no registration number is shown.
Starting
Your first appointment
What happens, in order
The honest bit about waiting: six people a week means a first appointment is usually two weeks out, sometimes three in December. Cancellations come up and I fill them from the list in order. If somewhere can see you tomorrow, that’s worth a thought either way.
Aster & Ash
First floor, 12a Shaw Road
Heaton Moor, Stockport SK4 4AG
0161 477 2938
Stairs to the studio, no lift — tell me if that’s a
problem and I’ll work something out.
New to me? Start here
Tell me what’s on your nails now and what you want next. If you’ve ever had a reaction to anything — nails, lashes, dental work — say so here and we’ll start with a patch test.