I'm a Kinetics USA Educator! My Trip To NYC & Some Tips I Learned!

This past week, I was invited to NYC to be a part of the very first Kinetics USA educators group! Kinetics is one of my new favorite brands for a few reasons: they put SO much care into their formulation, they have a product and solution for every nail type, and their products are long lasting and beautiful. If you haven’t tried it yet, you can browse all of their products on Nail Mart USA :)

The trip was super fun and also just so informative. There were 10 other nail experts there sharing tons of tips and tricks and it was so inspiring to me! I learned a bunch of random tips that I’m excited to implement into my practice and I thought it would be fun to do a round up of tips I learned and things I bought based on what we focused on and what others shared with me. Let’s get into it!

Nail Prep + Cuticle Prep Tips:

We learned about two different techniques for e-file cuticle prep for both dry and moist cuticles.

For really dry cuticles, our teacher showed us how she will dip a ball bit or cylinder bit into a tiny tiny amount of water before exfoliating the skin around the cuticle area. The water helps prevent the skin from feeling “hot” from the friction and she runs the bit around 15k rpm. I haven’t tried this yet but I’m very interested to test it soon.

For oily or moist cuticle, especially any skin that sticks up unto the nail, they told us to use baby powder or corn starch before using a flame bit on the skin. The powder is a drying agent and it will soak up any oils or moisture which makes the skin and cuticle drier and therefore easier to process and safer too! I tried this the other day and I’m definitely going to keep it on hand for whenever I’m dealing with oily cuticles from now on.

I also borrowed the Erica’s Russian Flame Bit in fine from my friend Katie one of the days and I LOVED the shape! I immediately ordered this and I’m excited to use it. I also ordered some cuticle scissors because a bunch of the girls used these instead of nippers and I was curious :)

Nail Products & Skincare:

At this training, we learned about when to use all of the different Kinetics’ products and how to properly apply them all - ranging from soft gels, color gels, hard gels, top coats, skin care and more (stay tuned to my socials for more tutorials)! Some of my favorite products that I tried were:

PS - Use code KARA10 for 10% off any Kinetics products!

Grapeseed Dry Nail Oil - Hydrating cuticle oil but it’s magically NOT greasy. It’s a dry oil that leaves your nails and skin glowing and soft but without residue, also there’s no scent. I loved!

Gel In Bottle Light Linen - I already lovee this hard gel in a bottle formula and I got to try out more shades in their color range. Light Linen is a very lovely slightly sheer neutral color hard gel.

Jelly Gel Medium in Milky White - Jelly gel is their thicker thixotropic potted hard gel, which doesn’t move very much (not self leveling) and it’s amazing for doing extensions or armoring the free edge. They showed us a bunch of different ways to do transparent or invisible french manicures with this (plus the Light Linen Gel in Bottle too!) which I need on my nails like yesterday. Plus the milky white color is perfect for nail repairs too.

Shield Colors - One thing I was really impressed with is their line of gel colors and the fact that they are formulated and tested to be fully opaque or full coverage in two THIN coats, which keeps the nail structure really thin.

They told us that even if the color could technically be full coverage in one layer if you apply it a little thicker in some areas, it’s actually better to do two thin layers because of maintaining the structure of the nail, that way it will be smooth and balanced and not lopsided.

This sounds really simple and obvious but for some reason I never thought of color application like this and it really clicked for me! I used their classed red shade Victory and also this deep red called Curious like this and it looks so perfect to me! I loved it. I also have various hard gels and the tinted top coat on my nails too :)

Tinted Top Coat in Stone - I have used this before but I was reaching for it a bunch at the training because 1) it’s a beautiful soft jelly milky color that just looks great! and 2) it fills in gaps and sparse areas and makes the nails look extra perfect and it’s so easy to use!!

We also just talked about other brands and products we love to use in general and these kept coming up:

Akzentz Hard Gel - This is what a lot of the girls use with their clients in addition to Kinetics. Their Trinity hard gel is 3-in-1: base + hard gel, color and top coat so you can literally apply it and wear it alone on the nails if you want! I had to order some to try.

Sirooni Nail Files & Buffers - I really liked these, they were comfortable to use and good quality! I’ll definitely be buying them once I run low.

Skincare - Kinetics has a very impressive and extensive skincare line including spa products for feet & hands, different cuticle oils, everyday moisturizers and richer moisturizers. AND they have a dedicated in house chemist whose job is to literally develop skincare products! We learned all about the different ingredients in their line and what each one does. It was really enlightening!! The main one that stuck out to me thought is Urea.

Urea is like a super ingredient for skin, and it can both hydrate and exfoliate depending on the percentage amount present in the formula. From my understanding, Urea can gently turn over dead skin cells which helps actually keep the skin hydrated and looking smooth. It also helps other moisturizing ingredients penetrate the skin AND then acts as barrier by locking in the hydration so skin feels softer for longer.

Kinetics Rich Cream has Urea in it. I also picked up this Prequel Urea Advanced Relief 10% Urea Moisturizing Milk (which I am obsessed with already!) and I just got this new Cyklar Urea Hand Cream that smells incredible and it’s sooo hydrating. I think this is my new favorite ingredient :)

Content Creation:

Pretty much everyone there also makes content for social media and it was so fun to trade content secrets. I took away 3 main things:

Baby Wipes and Micellar Water - instead of hydrating the nails with oil and lotion before taking photos or the final video, they suggested using baby wipes to wipe the nails and skin around the nails, and then rehydrate with micellar water which also starts the rehydrating process. And then of course after photos, use your Urea lotion :)

Shadowless Lamp - I’m always looking for better lighting for my videos and the founder of Nail Mart USA told me I had to try this type of lamp that claims to prevent shadows. I also like how it clamps onto the desk which is nice because it leaves more space on the actual desk!

That’s pretty much all I can remember aside from all of the Kinetics based info I learned which I’m so excited to start sharing on my channels soon too! If you have any questions or requests - let me know!!

I hope you enjoyed these random tidbits :)

Talk soon!

💋