Nail Repair, Nail Art, and Specialty Services
Repair is a judgment call first
A repair question is usually a screening question in disguise. A split or broken free edge on a healthy nail can be repaired with nail adhesive plus a silk or fiberglass wrap, a tea-bag patch, or a sculpted form, then buffed smooth and sealed. But a nail that is discolored green-black, lifted, painful, red at the fold, or draining is not a repair candidate: that is a possible bacterial or fungal condition, must not be covered with product, and should be referred. Green discoloration (often Pseudomonas) thrives under lifted product, so the first step is always removal and inspection, not concealment.
Specialty services - French and American manicures, hand-painted art, stamping, foils, gems, airbrushing, gel polish, extensions, paraffin and hot-oil treatments - obey the same infection-control spine as the basics. Brushes, dotting tools, nippers used on gems, and stamping plates must be cleaned and disinfected between clients; art pencils and any product applied to broken skin are single-client or single-use. Curing lamps need a cleanable surface and fresh bulbs or diodes. Adhesives, resins and gel polishes can sensitize skin, so keep them off the eponychium and sidewalls.
Traps: items that say a tip alone "repairs" a broken nail (a tip extends, it does not repair), that you may treat a suspected fungus with product to "seal it out," or that art tools only need a wipe with a towel.
Worked example: a client has a vertical split halfway down the plate, no redness or discharge. Remove shine, dehydrate, apply resin, lay a fiberglass strip over the split, cure, buff flush, seal with top coat, and tell the client to keep it dry. If the same split came with green staining, you would remove product, refer, and disinfect everything.