TECH TALK: Laura Ann Francis of Pretty Miss Nails & Beauty
By Callie Iley | 30 January 2021 | Feature, Tech Talk
Scratch chats to South Wales based Magpie educator, Laura Ann Francis, of Pretty Miss Nails & Beauty.
I’m Laura Ann Francis, and I’m the South Wales educator for Magpie Beauty. I work & teach from my home salon, Pretty Miss Nails & Beauty. I’ve been in the industry since 2012, and I’ve been self-employed since 2014. I previously won the Welsh Nail Technician Of The Year 2016 at the Welsh Hair & Beauty Awards. Nails are my passion and I love creating little masterpieces on my clients!
I’ve been using Magpie ever since they released their glitters back in the early days. Since then, I’ve consistently purchased all of their new releases, and haven’t looked back since! I think I discovered them first after seeing Soph of Rainbow Nails post about them on Instagram, and I was hooked as soon as I saw the sparkle.
My absolute favourite courses to teach are the Magpie Nail Art Courses. I couldn’t choose between the bronze, silver and gold as I have so much fun on all of them! It’s literally a play day with so much sparkle. It’s so amazing to show students all of the different ways that the Magpie products can be used and layered. It’s an amazing opportunity I’ve been given. I’m loving teaching online! You meet so many different nail techs, from all around the country.
It’s such a rewarding feeling when you hear students say how much you’ve helped them learn and develop.
I absolutely love creating marble designs. There’s something so magical about throwing a bunch of colours and glitters together and seeing what you come up with. I always use at least one of the Magpie Flakes in my marble designs. It really gives depth to the nail design.
The best advice I could give to a new nail tech is… Practise practise practise! Always take photos of your work from the very beginning, so you can always look back and see how far you’ve come and how much you’ve improved. Always keep up to date with training to keep your knowledge at top level. Everything comes with time and practise, don’t give up.
My favourite range to work with is definitely the Acrylic System – I’m 100% an acrylic girl. I love Magpie Gel Colour on natural nails as well, that’s one of my most popular treatments, but extensions wise it would be acrylic. Magpie’s Acrylic System is so easy to work with, and files like butter! It’s a wetter system, which works wonders for newbie nail techs. Magpie Perfect Poly would be a close second though, that product is such a game changer!
It’s so hard to choose the nail techs that inspire me the most! I’m obsessed with Terri Louise Copeland. Her marble designs are outstanding. Our Magpie Group on Facebook is such an amazing group to showcase your nails, so we see some truly talented techs on there.
There’s so many incredible techs – all the other Magpie educators inspire me daily!
My top five most reached for products are:
- Magpie Give Me Strength
- Magpie Gel Colour – Nina Cherry (My most popular colour ever!)
- Magpie Roseanna Flakes (I use this on so many designs!)
- Magpie Don’t Be Tacky
- Magpie Rubber Up
My favourite Magpie nail art range to work with is definitely the Magpie Flakes. Like I said earlier, they add so much depth into a nail design and Magpie offer such a variety of them now that mixing and matching flakes on a design can really add that wow factor. I’d be lost without them in my collection!