No e-file on the natural nail
An electric file is a legitimate professional tool and it belongs on product and on dead skin. On the natural nail plate it removes layers of nail, and the plate is only about a hundred microns thick to begin with.
What that produces is a thinned, flexible, sometimes visibly dished nail with a scooped ring a few millimetres up from the cuticle, in the same place on every finger, because that is where the bit sits. It is the most recognisable form of nail damage there is and it does not heal, it grows out, over about five months.
Here the e-file touches product and it touches the dead film during a dry manicure. It does not touch the nail. Everything else is done by hand.
No MMA
Methyl methacrylate is a cheap monomer restricted or banned for nail use across much of the United States. It sets harder than the nail plate itself, which sounds like a feature and is the problem: when an MMA nail takes an impact, the nail breaks rather than the product, sometimes taking the plate off the bed.
We do not use acrylic at all, so this does not arise here. It is worth knowing anywhere: if a product has a strong sweet chemical smell and will not soak off in acetone, that is what it is.
Pregnancy and autoimmune
Say so when you book and the appointment is adjusted rather than declined. Pregnancy: a low-odour gel system, the chair by the open window, and no acetone soak if you would rather avoid it. Lupus and other photosensitive conditions: a UV shield glove for the lamp, and a system with the shortest cure time on the menu.
Neither is a special request and neither costs anything. It just needs to be known before the appointment rather than discovered at it.