Beauty talks: Meet award-winning nail tech Amie Pike

Yazmine Lomax, marketing and communications executive at Flair Hair & Beauty Supplies, talks with the best in the beauty business. 

This month, Yazmine meets Amie Pike, a multi-award-winning nail technician whose passion, determination and talent has seen her take the Irish industry by storm!  

Hi Amie, it's lovely to chat with you! Can you tell us where your interest in nails began?

I did a full beauty course about 12 years ago. When we were given our work experience, I chose a nail bar and I actually got a job out of my work experience because I had that much passion for it! 

It's fantastic that you absolutely fell in love with it! How did you get your own salon up and running?

When I had my second baby, I never went back to the salon I was working in. I started working from home and doing clients every day. I got busy so I got a little room somewhere and then got busier and busier. I hired my first staff and then we got too busy for that little room, so we ended up going into the back of a sunbed shop. I hired another staff member and got busier and busier again and within six months I decided to leave the sunbed shop and open my own salon down the road. 

I had five staff at my last salon and again we outgrew the building, so I had to look for a bigger premise. I'm in my fourth salon (Apfashion Nails & Beauty) at the moment and each one has got bigger! 

That's amazing! What has been the hardest part of the whole process?

I would say keeping all your clients happy and making sure everyone can be pleased. Keeping everyone happy and keeping up with trends are the hardest parts, I think. 

Speaking of trends, what ones are you loving at the moment?

At the moment the main sets of nails we do on a daily basis is ombre. It's not going anywhere at the moment. They love ombre! We're quite good at it and I think ours would stand out from a lot of other peoples' and keep attracting clients in.

I think for the generation and age group coming up at the moment, it's all about social media so if you're not on social media you're not in the know. I concentrate on making sure I have regular posts going up every day so we're constantly popping up on peoples' newsfeeds. I even have a little chat on my Instagram Stories sometimes! I find I actually get more interest when I chat on my Stories than I would a picture.

What are some highlights of you career so far? You've had so many it might be hard to narrow it down!

So far definitely the IMAGE Award (for Best Nail Technician 2019) and winning Irish National Nail Tech of the Year in 2016 at the Irish Beauty Show. When I won in 2016, I travelled around the UK for the year doing judging. That was unbelievable. I'm off to Philadelphia in September to become an NSI Master Educator at an educator boot camp. I'm dying to see what it's like. I'll also be teaching IBX for Flair and I'm excited to do that!

That's amazing! There really are so many opportunities in the industry. Do you have any advice for those just starting out?

Practice, practice, practice and don't give up! Put your time and money into your training and do it with proper educators and proper brands rather than scrimping and scraping on cheap products and cheap courses. I've done it before myself and it works out ‘buy cheap, buy twice'. Put the money and the time into education at the beginning and it will work out for you in the end. 

Visit Flair's social media to learn about upcoming IBX classes with Amie Pike.