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1st Annual Nailtech Mailing List "Think Tank" (August 1998)
2003 Think Tank report HERE. 

While attending nail tech school, I had met Suzanne Lees (s_lees@hotmail.com) and she introduced me to the nail tech mailing list. On the list, I was able to read advice from other nail technicians who had many years of experience in the business and tons of professional advice to offer. To me, this was the best peer support system, and source of continuing education that I could have found as a professional nail technician.

During the months that I had been sending and receiving messages from other nail technicians, I decided that I wanted to put faces to the names that I corresponded so often with. So, through the magic of the mailing list again, I found out about a rendezvous time and place at the 1998 Midwest Beauty Show in Chicago at the Nails magazine booth to finally meet many of my on line friends. What a great experience it was to finally put the faces with names!

Taking the mailing list one step further, I thought it would be really great to get as many on-line nail techs from my geographical area (southeast Michigan/Northeast Ohio) to meet face to face and have a free workshop/seminar/training session on different areas and subjects of nail technology. The idea behind the meeting would be to share the knowledge of what I have learned since subscribing. I posted the request for the workshop publicly to the mailing list, and waited to see what type of feedback and responses I would get.

I posted all of the meeting details, and was getting quite a few responses. I had informed Suzanne about the post, and subsequently agreed to open her home to everyone to have our meeting. From there, we sat down together and finalized a date—Sunday, August 17th at 10:00 AM sharp.

I made another pubic post to the net one final time with the date, time, and location. We had originally had about 15 people scheduled to attend, but due to last minute circumstances and family commitments, not everyone was able to make it.

After allowing 1/2 hour for late arrivals, we had 8 nail techs in total attendance. They were: Ruth Windsor (Angelicnails@hotmail.com) Wendy Manyak (wmanyak@hotmail.com) both of Angelic Nails, Taylor, MI, Suzanne Lees (s_lees@hotmail.com) Anthony’s, Inc. Allen Park, MI, Diane McKey (diane_mackey@hotmail.com) Tammy Mazur (tmm63@hotmail.com) and Holly Goodnuff (h_goodnuff@hotmail.com) all from Paradise Island Salon in Monroe, MI, Kathy Fye (kati30@aol.com) Shear Genius Salon, Toledo, OH and Laura Joppich (ljoppich@hotmail.com) of Leona's Salon in Wixom, MI.

After introducing everyone over coffee, juice and bagels, I (Ruth) began the first demonstration with a hands on airbrushing demonstration, airbrushing styles, different tools you could use for airbrushing, and how to properly price your airbrushing. Additionally, we discussed different types of airbrushes, compressors, paints, stencils, and forms. Hand outs were distributed to everyone with hints and tips for future reference.

Wendy Manyak (wmanyak@hotmail.com) did an airbrush design called "The Parrot". This design was done with the help of a multi-leveled stencil that had many colors, and Wendy did a breath taking parrot design on Suzanne Lees, her hand model.

Suzanne had demonstrated the "Extra Hands", which is located at the Beauty Tech Main site via Airbrush Tip ‘O The Week, on how to airbrush your own nails yourself.

Some of the attendees that did show up were not members of the list. So, Suzanne booted up her computer and the new mailing list members were eagerly pounding the keys, subscribing right on the spot!

Kathy Fye, (kati30@aol.com) did a demonstration featuring the Premium Nail Concepts product line. She showed everyone how to do a pink and white sculpt and a pink and white overlay on a tip. Tammy (tmm63@hotmail.com) even took the plunge and with the help of Kathy’s guidance, dabbled with Premium for the first time herself.

By now it was time for a mental break, and we loaded up the cars and road tripped to a huge nail supply store in Madison Heights, MI. But not without first taking the time to do a group photo in front of Suzanne's home.

Then after some serious shopping for nail supplies, we headed off to lunch at Mexican Village in Detroit, a serious Mexican restaurant for serious Mexican food lovers and talked about over lunch—you guessed it-- NAILS! But, we were all good nail techs, no margaritas, just soda pop for everyone, but plenty of nacho chips and salsa. After lunch, some techs decided to call it a day, and others went back to Suzanne’s house for more training and brainstorming....we wanted more, so on we went.....

Laura (ljoppich@hotmail.com) did a demonstration with Star Nail's new fiberglass gel application. Laura was one of our newest nail techs to join the team. She had just taken her state board exam after a long and grueling apprentice program, and is anxiously awaiting her positive test results.

Laura was one of the hand models with no product on her hands, so Suzanne took the plunge, and finished off Laura’s hands by doing pink and white tips with acrylic overlays with the Tammy Taylor acrylic line. Boy, did they look nice! Laura was the perfect pink and white hand model with her nice, long nailbeds, and Suzanne deserved a hand for her efforts!

Suzanne shared with us some of the tips she learned at the CND Masters Class. Very interesting techniques utilizing cutting down on application time, proper product placement and filing techniques were discussed and distributed a handout to everyone of handy tips for future reference.

Finally, we all glanced down at our watches 11 hours later and said, "OHMYGOSH! Where did the time go?" and decided it was finally time to call it a night. It was a fabulous seminar, with new friendships being formed and talks of having another "Nail Tech Think Tank" real soon! Next topic of discussion to be tackled, forming a State of Michigan Professional Nail Technician’s Association with the help and guidance of Laura’s husband who is an attorney. Stay tuned!

My many thanks goes out to Suzanne Lees for offering her home, and being such a wonderful person. My thanks goes out to all who came and sacrificed the time to be away from their families to increase their knowledge and love of doing nails. And finally, to you Deb! Without you and your computer wizardry, none of this would have ever been possible!

I also wish to acknowledge the following companies that aided in our research and making our workshop a huge success: Badger, Aztek, Iwata, Tammy Taylor, Star Nails, Premium Nail Concepts, Nails In the Real World- Terri Terrico, Doug Schoon Nail Structure and Product Chemistry, Createx, Creative Nail Design, Meda, San Fransisco Nails, Too Much Fun

Sincerely,
Ruth A. Windsor
Angelic Nails- Taylor, Michigan
(angelicnails@hotmail.com)

9/12/98

Laura Joppich (ljoppich@hotmail.com) emailed me asking me to add this small note:

"I did pass my state boards and am working as a fully licensed nail tech in Brighton, Michigan. The name of the salon is Designing Image. As my first paying job as a nail tech, it is a wonderful place to work. I will model my own salon after this one when the time comes."