#NowTrending: Pastel French tips by Caitlin Duffy
By Callie Iley | 18 May 2021 | Feature, Tech Talk
Scratch chats to Caitlin Duffy of Polished By Caitlin about why she loves the nail industry and how she created this pretty pastel nail design…
My nail journey began in the summer of 2019, when I decided to enrol into a training course hosted by Sally Beauty. This course gave me the confidence I needed to take the plunge and start my nail career. I was so sure of myself that nails was my future that I created all my business pages before even attending the course!
I invested heavily into purchasing as many gel colours as I could afford shortly after completing my training. I posted my first set of nails and from then, my page and business has continued to grow.
My signature style is a nude base with brightly coloured nail art on top. When it comes to nail art, anything goes… The more colourful and detailed, the better. I have an art background, and knew I wanted nail art to be my main selling point. One of my favourite products is the Glossify Naturabuild in the shade Pink, it’s the perfect base for the nail art I love to create on top. My ride or die is my Indigo’s Master Nail Art Brush 006 – I couldn’t do any of my designs without it!
When it came to creating this nail design, I knew I wanted something eye-catching. These three colours next to each other are dreamy, and they’re all from The Gel Bottle. I started by precisely outlining my smile line using the shade Elder Flower, pulling it down slightly to where I wanted this colour to be seen. Next, I filled in the outer sides using the shade Flax with rounded edges, and lastly placing my final colour, Pink Lady, in between the two previous shades. The key to creating this set was to keep all my edges rounded and soft, as it is the best way in achieving that wavy effect I was after. This set was so fun and easy to create, and I can’t wait to recreate it using even more exciting colour combinations!
I absolutely love the nail industry – being lucky enough having a genuine passion for your job is not something everyone can say.
One of the main things I love about working in the nail industry is being part of what feels like a huge support system – everyone is so supportive, uplifting and encouraging. It comes from local nail technicians, to ones on the other side of the world. Everyone is so willing to share their knowledge, and through this I have made many friends in the Instagram community that I can’t wait to meet some day.
A highlight of my career so far would definitely be this feature – having my work acknowledged and loved is a huge personal success! From a business standpoint, a huge accomplishment is seeing my diary fill up with appointments, I am so grateful to every person who choses me as their nail tech.
My dreams for the future are to continue watching my business grow and succeed – to become a brand ambassador for my favourite brands, possibly even launching some of my very own products!
The end goal of mine would be to eventually open my own salon and share the space with other like minded nail techs, and for it to be a place where clients can come to relax and leave with a set of nails they adore. With the passion and love I have for my job, I know this is achievable.