Conversations with Nadia Soto

Today we’d like to introduce you to Nadia Soto

Hi Nadia, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
My name is Nadia Soto and I’m 23 years old. I am also a mom to a beautiful 10 month old baby girl. I was born and raised in Whittier CA. I come from immigrant parents whom I love for sacrificing eveything so my sister and I could have a better life. So it’s only right I do my best to give my daughter the best life and make her and my family proud.

I never had an interest in nails before. I could never polish my nails with out having polish all over my skin. I used to get my nails done at the salon but when Covid happened it was shut down so I decided to buy a kit and it was a fail. I had slowly bought everything I needed and it was way harder than it looked on TikTok videos. I put the kit away for months. That was until my sister told my if I wanted to practice on her because she was procrastinating doing her homework. 8 hours later the set looked VERY ROUGH. It’s expected as a beginner for the nails not to be perfect but looking back now they weren’t the absolute worst they just needed more shapping. After that I started practing more on a practice hand , on family, and on myself. I started to really enjoy doing nails and I thought maybe this is something I can do as a career. With some research I found a school near me and was excited to start beauty school and get my manicurist license. 5 months later after studying for hours and practicing the hands on part of the test daily , I passed the exam and was officially a licensed nail tech. Shortly after I started taking clients and that was nerve wrecking. But as time went by you get used to meeting new people and being excited to see your regulars. I started posting my work on Instagram and TikTok and luckily I had a few videos that blew up on tiktok. In May of 2022 I went from a couple of followers on TikTok to thousands of followers. Because of this I gained a huge clientele and I have gained amazing opportunities to collaborate with nail brands that I love. Over time I have seen my work get better but there’s still so much to improve on and learn. This industry gets so many new trends and you just have to keep up with it and practice designs that your clients ask for. I never expected any of this for myself but I am forever grateful for all of the opportunities being a nail tech has gotten me. I am excited to see what else being a nail tech holds for me.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Doing nails was not something that came easily to me nor was it what I had planned as a career. I went to college but was not satisfied with my career choice. I had majored in psychology but I just didn’t connect to it. I graduated community college with 5 associates degrees and was planning to transfer to a university. I had even paid the acceptance fee and was getting ready to continue school in the fall of 2021. I had lots of anxiety deciding whether or not to finishing pursing a career I no longer had an interest in. By this time I had fallen in love with nails and I thought maybe I can pursue this as a career. I talked to my husband and he told me that he would support any decision I made but to follow my heart. I decided to withdraw my acceptance from the university and decided to go to beauty school. It was scary because I didn’t know what was to come. As a nail tech the road was definitely bumpy as well . Like I said , I couldn’t polish my nails with out getting it on my skin. I practiced in nail school with red which if you know, it stains if you get it on the skin. And that really helped because at some point I didn’t get polish the skin as easily. It’s also very discouraging to continue to post content and stay consistent on social media with available and promotions when people wouldn’t book. Just because I have a following doesn’t mean I’m fully booked all of the time. Thankfully I’ve been booked more often that not .

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I currently offer acrylic nails, gel manicures, structured gel manicures, and gel x nails. I will soon be offering luxury pedicures as well. I specialize in acrylic as I have been doing it for over 3 years. What I am most proud of is my nail art. I would never have considered myself a creative or artistic person before. And Now I’ve done some characters and just small intricate designs that I didn’t even know I could do. I also feel I’ve gotten really good at a hand drawn French tip , which is really hard to do I feel . As a beginner I used to hate doing French tip and now I really enjoy it. I think what sets me apart from others is my mannerism. I like to explain to my client what I’m doing and why. I often told that I’m really gentle and that they appreciate me not being rough with the filing. I like to provide my clients with the best experience possible always. I talk about random things with my clients and listen to them tell me about their lives as well and I think that my clients enjoy that.

Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
What makes me happy is my daughter. I love my daughter so much and she is my biggest motivation. I want my daughter to know that you can do whatever you put your mind to. My husband makes me happy as well because he is my biggest supporter. He motivated me to pursue what I love doing and always hypes me up when I show him nail sets i do. Doing nails makes me happy as well. It doesn’t feel like a job to me and I think that’s beautiful to me because they say “you never work a day in your life if you love what you do “ and I genuinely love to do nails. Hours can go by and I don’t think to myself “I want to be done already.” I’m glad I ended up choosing this career.

Pricing:

• Currently offering 60$ gel x sets to promote adding gel x to my services
• 65$ acrylic sets Sale in April

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nailsbynadia562?igsh=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==
• Other: TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@nailsbynadia562?_t=ZP-8umGCXJtaoQ&_r=1

Image Credits
Maria Calixto Martínez
@bluem4r