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Airbrushed or freehand nail art?

Why I chose airbrush.

 With so much nail art equipment around what do you opt for when clients start to show an interest in nail art?  Do you choose low cost to the client nail art such as rhinestones, striping tape, glitters and free hand paints or airbrushing which can be quite costly to the client when the service is additional to a full set of extensions or maintenance.

When deciding what to offer there are a number of factors to consider;

      how much are your clients willing to spend on their nail art?

      will nail art be a regular service or something booked just for a special occasion?

      do you have the time and patience to prepare and nail art sample board?

      can you spare the extra time per client to perform the service?

 When I first started in nails I offered quite a basic nail art selection, 2 colours separated by striping tape, rhinestone flowers and a painted green stalk and leaves.  The equipment was fairly basic, pots of rhinestones, tape, water decals, paints and a very thin paint brush.  I started to offer the nail art only to come across problems with the striping tape peeling away at the edges and rhinestones lasting only a couple of days on the nail.  Over the months I overcame these problems and the designs became more effective but not varied enough for the client to have a noticeably different design at each appointment. 

I went out and bought an airbrush, a few basic colours that looked good together and a couple of stencils.  For days I sat spraying tips that were blu-tacked to every flat surface I could see.  After what seemed like 500 tips later something clicked and I was off.  Every client then walked away with a palm tree and mountains airbrushed on every nail.  At this time I was the only nail tech within a five mile radius offering airbrushed nail art.  The paint collection and stencil book grew as fast as my new client list.  As I wasn’t advertising my service at that time I was surprised to find people ringing out of the blue asking for airbrush on their own nails.  Soon every client was opting for airbrushing after the manicure/extension service.  Every now and then it all gets a bit much for them and they revert to the simple plain polish with just rhinestones for a couple of weeks.  Mainly so that they could get on with their lives without being stopped everywhere they went and being grilled about what they have on their nails this week! 

So, overall I have opted to offer airbrushing as my main nail art service.  Although the initial outlay was rather expensive the cost is very quickly recovered.  The amount of paint used for each client is so small that 1oz of paint will last a very long time and you can create dozens of different designs with just a couple of stencils.  The extra time per client varies from 5 to 30 minutes, most of the clients who are used to having the airbrush design know roughly what type of design they want so I can book in enough time for the service.

 There are many airbrushing courses around at the moment that will teach you the basics; cleaning the airbrush, mixing colours, arranging the stencils etc.  These courses are useful but the main work of learning the skill is practice, practice, practice.  Have you attended an airbrush course?  What did you think?  What is your most frequently asked for design?  How do you display your designs?  Let me know anything you want about the airbrushing or freehand nail art.   Let me know what nail art you chose to offer and why.