I still work directly with private clients Tuesday to Friday.
I also have 168 session credits dating back to 2011, across editorial, campaigns, commercial work, covers and runway, including 67 runway credits across London, New York, Milan and Paris Fashion Weeks, with 34 of those as lead nail artist.
I think that matters when I talk about getting into session work, because I haven’t forgotten what it feels like to have a diary full of actual clients.
I know what it is like to work appointment after appointment, to have someone turn up late, to have somebody change their mind halfway through, to work quickly and still make sure the finish is right.
And I know what it is like backstage.
For me, those two worlds were never as separate as they can sometimes appear from the outside.
I didn’t leave one career behind and suddenly become a session nail artist.
The session side grew alongside what I was already doing.
And looking back, I think that is one of the most important things for a working nail tech to understand.
Before I even knew it was a career
My first exposure to that side of the industry actually happened before 2011.
I was working at Nails Inc, and a group of us were asked to go to The X Factor house to do nails. One of the people I worked on was Rhydian Roberts.
What stayed with me wasn’t really the job itself.
It was seeing the nails afterwards on television.
Until then, nails had mainly existed between me and the person sitting in front of me. You did the appointment, finished the nails, the client left, and that was where you saw the result.
Then suddenly I was seeing work I had done on television, as part of something much bigger than the nail appointment itself.
That fascinated me.
I didn’t walk away from that thinking, I’m going to become a session nail artist.
I didn’t have that language for it then, and I definitely didn’t have some perfectly mapped-out career plan.
I just knew I found that side of the industry really exciting.
Looking back now, that was exposure.
The actual career came later.
And I think careers can start like that sometimes — sideways, before you even realise they have started.
2011: when I can start tracing it
2011 is the point where I can properly start tracing my session career through the credits.
I was still working at Nails Inc.
My normal working world was clients, appointments and delivering a good nail service in a busy commercial salon.
At the same time, I started doing a string of shows at Vauxhall Fashion Scout, a platform known for showcasing emerging designers during London Fashion Week.
That environment introduced me to more people working across fashion and beauty.
Makeup artists. Nail artists. Creatives. People already working backstage and on shoots.
And that is where something important started happening.
I wasn’t going somewhere to “network”.
I was working.
People were seeing me work.
There is a difference.
How another job came from that room
One of the makeup artists I met through that environment later got in touch and asked me to do nails for the Alex Metric End of the World music video.
I hadn’t sat down and decided that my next career move needed to be a music video.
I hadn’t chased that particular job.
Somebody had worked around me, remembered me and thought of me when another opportunity came up.
That became one of the things I started to understand about session work.
The technical skill was still nails.
But the way work moved around the industry was completely different from the salon.
Nobody was going onto a booking system and choosing an appointment with me.
Jobs could come because somebody had already seen how you worked.
They had seen how you behaved when things were busy.
Whether you were prepared.
Whether you were easy to work alongside.
Whether they would want you in another room with them.
That relationship had formed while I was doing the work itself.
And I think that is an important distinction for anyone looking at session work from the outside.
You are not the centre of the appointment anymore
This was probably the biggest difference for me.
You are not the centre of the appointment anymore.
In a salon, the appointment revolves around the client and the service you are providing.
There is a person sitting in front of you.
There is a treatment.
There is a start time and an end time.
And normally, when the nails are finished, your part is finished.
Session work doesn’t operate like that.
Nails are one part of a much bigger production.
There can be hair, makeup, styling, production, photographers, directors, designers, models, clothes changing, timings moving and creative decisions happening around you.
Your work has to fit into all of that.
You might be waiting for quite a while and then suddenly have very little time.
Something you were planning to do might change because the clothes have changed.
Or the creative direction changes.
Or somebody else needs the model.
And one of the first things I realised was that the actual nail work wasn’t what surprised me.
I already knew how to do nails.
The craft carried over. It was everything around the craft that operated differently.
You had to learn where your work fitted inside the production rather than expecting the production to fit around your nail service.
The salon had prepared me more than I realised
There were also things I already had from Nails Inc that turned out to be incredibly useful.
Speed was one of them.
But not just being fast.
Being able to work quickly without letting the standard drop.
Anybody who has worked in a busy salon knows that being good technically isn’t enough.
You have another client after this one.
Somebody is late.
Somebody changes their mind.
Somebody wants something slightly different.
The day moves.
And you still have to produce good work.
That transferred.
The pressure backstage was different, but I already had that habit of continuing to work properly even when everything around me wasn’t going perfectly.
Don’t panic.
Don’t let the person in front of you feel your pressure.
Don’t use being rushed as an excuse for sloppy work.
The other thing the salon gave me was the ability to read people.
When you work with clients all day, you learn that everybody is different.
Some people want to talk.
Some don’t.
Some are nervous.
Some know exactly what they want.
Some need reassuring.
You learn how to adjust without making a big performance out of it.
That matters on set too, because you are constantly working around different personalities, different departments and different levels of pressure.
There wasn’t one big dramatic moment where I suddenly realised Nails Inc had prepared me for session work.
It was more gradual than that.
I just started noticing that I was better prepared than I had expected.
I knew how to keep moving.
I knew how to maintain a standard.
I knew how to behave professionally while the circumstances around me changed.
And those things matter.
Neither of them shows up in a portfolio. Both can affect whether somebody wants to work with you again.
What I had to unlearn
Not everything from salon life transferred in the same way.
One of the biggest things I had to understand was that the person sitting in front of me wasn’t necessarily the client anymore.
In a salon, if your client wants a different colour or shape, that matters.
The service is for them.
On set, the model might be the person whose nails I am physically working on, but the work itself can belong to a much bigger creative direction.
The designer might have an idea.
The stylist might need something.
There may be a brief.
The photographer or director may be working towards a particular image.
Production has its own requirements.
So what does the person sitting in front of me prefer? isn’t automatically the deciding question anymore.
I had to understand who the work was actually for.
The other thing I had to unlearn was the idea that I controlled my own timing.
In a salon, even when the day is chaotic, your appointment still has a place in the diary.
On set, you can wait.
And wait.
And then suddenly it is your turn and there is almost no time.
You have to be ready when your window appears.
Again, the nail technique wasn’t the part that needed to change.
I had to understand my role differently.
If you’re working in a salon or mobile right now
This is what I want you to take from my story.
Look at what you already do every week.
You work to time.
You deal with different personalities.
You adapt.
You solve problems.
You keep your standard up when the day isn’t going to plan.
You take responsibility for your finish.
Those are not irrelevant skills that you have to throw away before entering the session world.
They are part of your professional foundation.
What you may not have yet is the translation.
How those skills work inside an environment that isn’t centred around your appointment.
How jobs move through relationships rather than a client booking system.
How your role changes when nails are one part of a much bigger creative production.
Those things can be learned.
I learned them while I was still working with clients.
And that is why I don’t believe you have to become a completely different kind of nail artist before you can start moving into session work.
You already have more of the foundation than you probably realise.
You just have to learn a different environment.
