About painting the dominant hand as a 10y-ish nail tech - start with the dominant hand! That way when you're all worked up and may be less careful - you won't make as many mistakes 😁
Edit: and about the lamps: the BEST lamps are 48w with mirror or MAYBE a white bottom. Don't go higher in terms of power (you can end up with the top layer of gel cured too fast and uncured product underneath), lower power may not cure all products properly, and don't go with black inside - black absorbs light, so you'll end up with lower power than should be. It honestly doesn't matter what brand of lamp you're using, as long as you are checking if the power is right for your product (And ALWAYS check the curing time!!!).

I felt crazy for taking a whole day to do nails so thank you for normalizing that lmao 😭

Congratulations on getting licensed, James! What a great creative outlet for you - you're a natural 💜

Non dominant hand tip: (similarly to moving your hand toward the brush 9:08) if you're struggling to get smooth sweeps of polish with your ND hand, place your dominant hand on something that will easily slide along the surface (paper, plastic lid, literally anything). Then when you hold the brush to the nail you can slide your other hand along in a stable, controled way. This also works when doing straight lines in nail art :)

I highly recommend watching content from The Nail Hub. Liz is so knowledgeable.

I felt so seen when you said it takes you five hours to do your nails because I also take a day or two because I’m not going anywhere and I take my time and it’s not messy at all. It’s therapeutic and it comes out really nice. I don’t feel a shame anymore that I think around 5 to 6 hours to do my nails and they last you know I breaks in between

14:17 just a note, Gel X has two versions of each nail shape. Natural and Sculpted. The natural is flatter, and the sculpted have a higher apex. I use natural because my nail beds are flatter. I don't feel like you have to use a lot of product at all with these. You would go with sculpted if your nails were naturally more curved, or if you're going for a very long shape which would benefit having a higher apex for strength.

PLEASEEEEEEEEEEEE be carerful filing your natural nail beds!!! I made a big mistake of this when  I was a beginner and it ended up hurting my nail beds bad and I had to wait for it to grow out, it can be easy to over file when you are using fake nails so please be careful loves!!!

The Welsh twins are really here for ALL my needs 🙌

If you're impulsive and get bored of the same look easy like me, a handy thing to do can be do your base set, I usually do a soft gel tp used as a half cover tip and a jelly nude builder gel over the whole thing; then a peel off base for whatever I'm inspired to do for the week/half week over the builder gel

I am also a new registered tech at age 51 lol. So I really appreciate your videos, particularly this one.  You've been so helpful to me as I tend to hesitate with further practice due to my fears of poor outcomes (my teacher bullied  me as I was too slow). Thanks for making me feel more comfortable with the early messy process. 🙏🌹🤗

I’ve been a working nail tech for almost 8 years now, and this video is 10/10! I agree with EVERYTHING you said! I would add, pigments are another super easy way to do an ombré, and pretty inexpensive.

You do NOT want to get an anaphylactic allergy to acrylates. They are pretty much everything in medicine and dentistry so you get one fillings and surgeries especially will become a huge hassle

I bought a bunch of stuff before learning about the allergy aspect, and honestly, I've just decided to spend my time taking care of my cuticles and making sets to press on later. So I have quite a few sets that I made myself now, and I refuse to take the risk of doing it ON my nails.
Cute nails are NOT worth the risk of a lifelong allergy due to ALLLLLLL the ways those allergies can be acquired. Even HEMA free products, can give you allergies. It's just nooooot worth it.

I would like to point out that doing too many gel manicures puts your nails at higher risk for long-term damage and skin aging on your hands, so if you're  going to practice often, use the full coverage nail tips and not your natural nails all the time.

I learned a very good thing a few months ago. I don't need to remove all the product from my nails when I'm doing new nails. 😜
I just file down to the clear bottom layer and make sure I don't have any lifting or discoloration between the nail and the product. then I fill in the new clear nail polish near the cuticle and paint on a new color.

I'm glad you mentioned doubling the curing time. I tend to do it more, but I will feel more comfortable now doubling all the stated times. I had heard that while under-curing is a problem, there can also be problems with over-curing gel nails. Later I learned that the only problem from over-curing is things like making it become brittle and crack, which is much better than having uncured gel on your nails.

Well done James 👏🏼 as a professional myself it's great to see you sending out the importance of avoiding contact with gels on skin!

Nails aren’t my thing but I am here because it’s YOU ❤

Beware!  I was doing my own gel nails for a long time.  I was still perfecting it because my nail beds are oily the polish was easily peeling off.  It was almost like overnight I started to have an allergic reaction.  And this isn’t some small reaction I had.  I had painful bumps and redness on all my nails even at the tip under the nail bed.  Blistered and all, it was horrible and painful.  Lasted almost two months.  Once heeled I tested here and there, I got fake nails thinking maybe it would be better from a professional and after 24 hours I started having a burning sensation and needed to get them removed.  Forward to months later I thought I’d test one nail with using the nail stickers that just said “gel like” and yup had a reaction.  I’m ok with regular polish but no gel.  It’s been almost a year and man do I miss the look of gel.  My nails have never been the same, I used to have perfect nails that grew out evenly and were thick and strong, which is why I did gel at home but this allergy ruined them.  They’ve never been the same.  Be careful!  I’d share pic if I could but maybe better you don’t see it lol