Do I really need a nail grinder if I have nail clippers?
Yes, Gina emphasizes that a personal nail grinder (Dremel-style tool) is important even for beginners. While clippers cut nails, a grinder smooths edges, prevents splitting, and gives a more professional finish—it's worth including from day one.
At a glance
Length
16 min
Channel
Gina's Grooming
Video from
Aug 2022
Rating
⭐⭐ Great video · 2/2
Best for
Aspiring professional groomers and serious home pet groomers planning their first purchases
What this video answers
Do I really need a nail grinder if I have nail clippers?
What's the difference between a curved shear and a straight shear?
Why does Gina recommend buying two 7F clipper blades but maybe only one 5F?
Should beginners buy cordless clippers or stick with corded?
How do I know if a beginner scissor kit is worth buying?
Reads the guide aloud in your browser — free, no account.
What Essential Tools Make Up a Professional Grooming Starter Kit
Gina's Grooming walks through the foundational equipment every groomer needs to begin their career, whether working in an established salon or launching independently. The video breaks down a basic grooming kit into two main categories: bathing and brushing tools, where most groomers start, and cutting tools including scissors, shears, and clippers. Gina explains that while the grooming industry offers countless specialized products, the beginner's focus should be on bare-bones essentials—affordable, durable tools that let you learn the craft before upgrading.
The presentation is structured across three progression levels: Level One (what beginners buy day one), Level Two (upgrades as work flows in), and Level Three (the professional toolkit Gina uses today). This approach helps aspiring groomers understand that equipment needs grow with experience and income. The video emphasizes that starting simple doesn't limit your ability to deliver quality grooming—proper tool selection, maintenance, and technique matter far more than owning every product on the market.
Key Moments
Key Equipment Categories for Beginning Groomers
Bathing and brushing basics: Include a slicker brush, rubber brush, metal combs with mixed tooth spacing, and a conditioning spray to protect coats during pre-brushing work.
Nail and ear care: Purchase nail clippers, a metal file, a personal nail grinder (often called a Dremel), hemostats or rounded tweezers, and safety scissors for detailed face work.
Scissor starter set: Begin with curved shears (8 inches), thinning shears (48-tooth), and consider adding straight shears and blunt-tipped safety scissors for versatility and safety around eyes.
Clipper and blades: A basic corded one- or two-speed clipper serves most jobs; prioritize essential blades like the 5F and 7F (shaving blade—buy two), 10 blade (sanitary trim), and 15 blade for close work.
Guide combs: These accessories attach to clippers to control cut length and are essential for learning consistent, safe cuts before mastering hand-scissor technique.
Cost-saving strategy: Some beginners can skip the 5F blade by using matching guide combs, and starter scissor kits from manufacturers bundle curves, straights, and thinners affordably.
Why Investing in Beginner Grooming Tools Matters
Starting with the right foundational tools removes barriers to learning and building confidence. Many aspiring groomers feel overwhelmed by the vast array of professional-grade equipment available, but Gina's framework shows that you don't need everything upfront—you need quality in the essentials and room to grow. When you begin with proven beginner tools, you develop proper technique before developing expensive habits, and you avoid buyer's remorse from purchasing specialized equipment you won't use yet. This structured approach also builds client trust: as you gain confidence and your reputation grows, clients see your passion and become loyal enough to wait while you gradually upgrade your kit, making reinvestment feel natural rather than desperate.
Frequently Asked Questions About Starting a Pet Grooming Kit
Do I really need a nail grinder if I have nail clippers?
Yes, Gina emphasizes that a personal nail grinder (Dremel-style tool) is important even for beginners. While clippers cut nails, a grinder smooths edges, prevents splitting, and gives a more professional finish—it's worth including from day one.
What's the difference between a curved shear and a straight shear?
Curved shears are your workhorse for most of the dog's body, while straight shears excel at detail work like the back of a Poodle's top knot or down the legs. Most groomers use curves 90% of the time and pull out straights for specific situations, so straights aren't essential day one but should come soon after.
Why does Gina recommend buying two 7F clipper blades but maybe only one 5F?
The 7F blade is a shaving blade used for close work like sanitary trims and shave-downs. Having two lets you rotate them while working to keep blades cool and prevent overheating. The 5F can be partially substituted by using matching guide combs, which saves money when starting out.
Should beginners buy cordless clippers or stick with corded?
Start with a corded clipper. Cordless models are convenient once your career takes off, but corded clippers are reliable, affordable, and perform consistently for beginners mastering technique. You can upgrade to cordless and specialty clippers later as your kit evolves.
How do I know if a beginner scissor kit is worth buying?
Scissor manufacturers often bundle a curved pair, straight pair, and thinning shears at a discount—this is a smart way to get three essential tools affordably rather than buying separately. The video recommends looking for these starter bundles if you're budget-conscious.
This video is genuinely helpful because it cuts through the noise of endless product options and grounds beginners in what actually matters. Gina's experience—she started with a grooming school kit herself—shines through, and the three-level framework is smart: it shows you where you begin and where you're headed, so investing in basics feels purposeful rather than limiting.
What I loved most was her honesty about substitutions: the idea that you can skip the 5F blade by using guide combs, or that you don't need straight shears day one, gives beginners permission to start lean and upgrade when cash flows in. If you're serious about grooming your pets at home or starting a grooming career, this is worth watching.
I started Helicopterstour.com because I genuinely believe there’s no better way to see the world than from the sky.
I used to work on the Pride of America cruise ship in Hawaii, helping guests book shore excursions all over the islands.
Two Vacation Hero Awards
2,000+ Guests/Week
Pride of America · NCL
Hawaii Shore Excursions
1000+ Tours Reviewed
Have you always wanted to know the basic equipment you need to start grooming pets professionally? There is a basic idea of a "Grooming Kit" that some Grooming Schools prepare for their students so that they have all the essentials to start learning to groom, Day One. Now yes, the Grooming Industry is very vast, and there are a lot of products and equipment that can help you do things more efficiently and, let's face it, add to the art of Grooming. But that's not usually where we start - we go to the bare-bones, collect our pennies, and get what we need to follow our passion! And once people feel your passion, they will come, and you'll be able to start to upgrade and enhance your equipment. Hope this helps in narrowing down the basics so that you can start your journey to groom like a pro. Thanks for joining!
As promised, we've laid out our 3 levels of kits on our website:
7 Things to Look for When Choosing Grooming Clippers: https://youtu.be/z7o_4Q1xi24
Clipper Blades for Pet Grooming Explained: https://youtu.be/hIIG8-v7SHY
Guide Combs for Pet Grooming Explained: https://youtu.be/yoZCiHar_xk
Ear Hair Plucking for Dogs: https://youtu.be/Y7Oen6qMW10
If this is the kind of content you are looking for, please remember to Like this video and Subscribe to our channel (you know the button)! And if you want to be notified when we release another video, make sure to click the bell icon!
Visit our webpage and read up on our grooming blog for dog grooming stories and fun, informative pet grooming information:
https://www.GinasGrooming.com
Help keep the treats coming—for me and the pups! ☕🐾
buymeacoffee.com/ginasgrooming
Join us on our FB page: https://www.facebook.com/ginasgroomingeducation
Video transcript for “Grooming Starter Kit - The Basic and Essential Equipment Needed to Groom Pets - Gina's Grooming” Accessibility
A full written transcript of this video, provided for accessibility. Select any timestamp to jump the video to that moment.
hi pet lovers thank you for joining gina's grooming channel today's discussion is going to be on the basic equipment that every groomer starts out with okay so the basic grooming kit right so when we are ready to groom obviously there's a lot of equipment that is involved in grooming if you're
starting your own salon or if you're going out on your own but if you're going to be working in a salon that has an infrastructure in place so they have tubs they have dryers they have all of that for you you can go ahead pack up all of this into a container right and go ahead into
that location and start to groom so i remember when i first started grooming i had the benefit of going to grooming school and in the tuition they embedded a cost for a grooming kit so our starting grooming kit um so now this cost went ahead and paid for these selections that our instructors writing
the director of the school chose for us to start our grooming career so this discussion is kind of going to do the same thing which is going to go through all of the basic essentials that you need to start grooming so if you're an aspiring groomer or just a home groomer kind of curious to see where
people start or if you're very serious about grooming your pets at home you can see what's included in the basic grooming kit and where most groomers start out so although this isn't exactly all the brands that i started working with it will give you a basic idea um and what i'm going to do is put in the
description and a link to our website and we're going to go ahead and put this in kind of level so i'm going to show you the equipment that i started with so level one and then kind of as i progress through my career i'm gonna give you guys an example of the kit for level two so the stuff that i was able to buy once
my career started to get going and then i'm gonna do level three uh for people can kind of see where that progression is so some of the equipment that i use today um and where that started from level one to level three so you can really see how the kits can vary depending on where you are in your
grooming career all right so we laid out the table in a very uh strategic way and what we're going to do is kind of work our way through and all of the equipment on this side of the table is all for bathing brushing okay so that's mostly how groomers start out we start out bathing and brushing
and then we go ahead and start learning how to do haircuts and start using clippers and scissors and the like so i'm going to go ahead from this side go through some of the points with the equipment that is part of the kit so you kind of understand what it's used for and some of the logic behind it and then
we'll go ahead and progress toward the haircut side and deal with all the details there okay bathing brushing where we all start out okay so we've got our brushes so let's look at the basic brushes now again this is a very basic basic idea just know that as you start progressing and grooming you are gonna start
acquiring a lot a lot of stuff but basically um we are gonna have a slicker brush and we are gonna have a rubber brush okay so this is for dogs that have coats these are dogs that have short or smooth carrot coats so we wanna make sure we don't scratch them so make sure you have a slicker brush and a rubber
brush and if you are working with show dogs like right off the bat you want to have a pin brush too for any long coats so you don't go ahead and cut that coat in any way but just be aware that the basics are pin brush rubber brush okay moving on to combs we definitely want to have a variety of teeth spacing
we want to have a metal comb that is sturdy this comb in particular has a coarse side and a fine side so this will do a lot of work for a lot of dogs if you do want to enhance it and you're working with a lot of thick coats you definitely maybe want to look at something with more teeth spacing right
so you're not like yanking at the coat with finer teeth and also if you're working around eyes you may want to consider looking this is not a flea comb but a very fine comb so you can go ahead and get some really detailed work around a dog's face and other parts of their body and of course when we're doing any kind
of brushing work we are going to have a conditioning spray because we want to make sure that we flick out that coat especially if you're doing any kind of pre-brushing so i consider this a personal grooming item i like to select my grooming spray and i know a lot of groomers do so look out for a spray that works for
you i can definitely give you some recommendations but know that if you are doing bathing and brushing you're going to want to have a conditioning spray of your choosing okay let's move on still in the bathing brushing arena our nails so we have our nail trimmer right our nail clipper i always
like to include a metal nail file and i will say even in the very very beginning of grooming um you have your own personal nail grinder okay so this is really important um you'll see these also uh called dremels but this is really important to have as part of your kit so still in the bathing brushing arena
if you are dealing with ear hair um you're going to either have to get some hemostats or some rounded tweezers i actually round these tweezers you can see me use this um when i talk about ear hair plucking for dogs in our video on our channel um but just know be prepared getting the hair with your fingers is
not always um gonna be easy so you definitely want to be prepared to have equipment that can go ahead and pull out that hair okay so now that we've got our bathing brushing all settled um we are going to go in let's go ahead and talk about shears and scissors um if you guys have any questions on shears and scissors we
do have a video out that for uh for you we haven't made one yet of thinning shears so we're definitely gonna bring that to you so we can talk about different types of thinning shears and how we use them but just know that for our beginning grooming kit okay now the ones that i'm showing you here are
probably not going to be your choices day one when you're starting to groom um they're a little more refined but really the basic principle is you want to have a pair of thinners okay so when these are 48 tooth you'll see there's 46 teeth thinners and you want to have a pair of curved
shears right a pair of curved scissors now as i said before you're going to start getting a lot more scissors and shears and collecting and collecting you're going to be using scissors and shears in different parts of the dog's body some you're going to use on the feet so just know be aware but when you're
really starting out you can get away with just having a nice pair of curves these are eight inches and a nice pair of thinning shears these are 48 tooth now i recommend but if you can't afford it to also include a pair of straight shears and in fact a lot of the scissor manufacturers will go ahead and do a
starter kit i'm going to look for some of those starter kits for you if you are interested but that includes a curved pair a straight pair and a pair of thinning shears so um just know that a straight pair is really good to have i wouldn't say it's necessary day one i will say that for the majority of
grooms i always not always always but mostly use my curves and really bring out my straights in just um just very specific situations like the back of a poodle top knot like column legs but be aware that you definitely want to have a straight pair at some point soon after you start uh
grooming and you also want to have a pair of safety scissors again when i started there was no safety scissors i was cutting by the eyes with my curved uh shears but if you have the option to buy some blunt edge so these are ball tipped edge uh safety scissors they also are a lot lighter so if you're working around
the face or eye it's a lot safer that they are light so that they don't close um with any power so just know that thinners and curve shears are the basics but if you kick it up a notch to the straight shears and include also some safety scissors you're going to be a lot a lot ahead of the game okay let's move
on to clippers uh this is where you're going to be doing your puppy cuts a lot of your clipper work paw pad trims a lot of stuff happens with your clipper i mean i have seen people who just hand scissor dogs but for the most part groomers are going to be including clippers um as part of their tools that
they do their haircuts with now i believe this is the clipper that i started with it was just a one speed i'm gonna go ahead and include um one that is very similar that's a two speed in the kit in the description uh below um but just know that at one speed is not too bad one of the things i do want to
talk about is that i recommend a corded clipper at first as you progress and i know i keep saying it you're gonna get more and more equipment you're gonna move on to corded clippers and all sorts of fancy stuff and detail clippers don't worry about that in the beginning really just a nice maybe one or two
speed corded clipper is going to get you through all the jobs that you need to get done as long as you select the proper clipper blades and you take care of them well and you take care of your equipment you can go ahead and start with a very basic clipper and rest assure that you're going to be able to
get the job done and just to mention since i am going to be putting down a very basic clipper in the kit if anyone is interested in kind of figuring out how best to decide how to select a clipper for you we do have seven things to look for when choosing a professional pet clipper i'll put the
link down in the description below you guys can jump to that if anyone is really serious about buying a clipper and really wants to understand the factors that are involved with that okay clipper blades these are what go on your clipper and in professional grooming uh you are gonna have a
standard a5 clipper blade that's gonna fit on your a5 compatible clipper um so let's go through the blades uh that i have here and then i'm gonna tell you which ones i find incredibly important that every groomer should have on a day-to-day basis and then some that are kind i don't want to say obsolete but
you can get away with not purchasing them day one when you are building your kit so if you want to save a little bit of money uh when you're purchasing purchasing your kit i'll tell you how you can do that okay so clipper blades they start really most groomers will have a three and if
you are concerned about what that f is behind that watch our clipper blade episode it explains everything about how clipper blades work how they fit on the clipper all of that good stuff so i'm not going to go through that here but let's just talk about the clipper blades that would be included in the kit
now the three i put here but really that's not usually included in the kit but a lot of groomers do find this three a very valuable it's a 13 millimeter um clipper blade so just know that a lot of groomers like the three i did not start with the three but i did have a four okay i did start with a five
okay and i started with the seven all of these are finishing blades with the f now i'm going to tell you right now that i would definitely recommend that you double up on your sevens in your initial kit the fives i have multiple fives working as a professional i have multiples of all of these um but the
fives if i'm going and doing work i will take multiple fives as well but i will tell you that when we talk about the clipper guide calms there are some lanes of guide combs that mirror very closely the size 5f so that's why if you do want to save some pennies you can just go ahead and buy one size five of your
clipper blades um but when you're going into the sevens i would definitely recommend buying at least two uh because size seven f is gonna be your shaving blade this is what you're gonna be doing your shave downs with and you definitely wanna have two not only if one breaks but you also
wanna make sure that you can rotate while you're shaving so you keep your uh your blades cool moving on we got our tens definitely double up on the tens tens are kind of easy to double up on because that's what's most commonly coming with your clipper when you purchase a clipper uh
so but tens are what you're going to use for sanitaries a lot of people start out doing paw pats with tens so good to double up on a 10. um it's also good because you can use guide combs over a 10 okay and then you have your size 30s these i say double up on i would have a lot more of these i do have a lot more
of these but even in the beginning i'm gonna say at least two but consider doing at least three size 30s because size 30 is what you're going to be using under your guide columns which are going to talk about in a second so you're going to be using a lot of 30s and they can dull out really fast so just know be
prepared you don't want to be stuck in the middle of a haircut with you having only 130 and then it goes out and you can't finish that haircut and then i added 40 here this is more for nostalgia but the 40 is important to have especially if you have a paw pad that has a really thick mat in it and you have to get
really close always nice to have a 40 handy i also want to mention that the 40 is what the plastic guide comes of the days of yore used to fit over um but just know that do not put your metal guy combs over your 40. this was only used for your plastic guide combs but again really nice to have and if in case you
have something happen to all your metal guide combs and someone lends you a plastic guide comb at least you'll have a 40 that you can use all right and part of our kit kind of final part is going to be our guide combs again these are typically going to be sitting over our 30s and they come in
different lengths um okay so these you buy them in a kit you want to make sure that you have this um part of your overall starting grooming kit this is how you do your haircuts with a guide comb that fits over your clipper blade 30 that's going to sit on your clipper right so you're going to have this whole
entire configuration and that's how you're going to do your haircuts so just know that if you don't have your guide combs day one you're not really going to be able to do much except maybe shave downs and hand scissoring so it doesn't give you a lot of flexibility just know that when you're prepping your kit a
guide comb is a crucial thing okay so now that we talked about the equipment there's a few little side notes i want to tell you that if you are packing your bag and starting to work at a salon that's great one of the other personal items that you are going to be bringing with you is either a grooming smock or a
grooming apron so something to protect your clothing so be aware that there's going to be a lot of stuff flying at you and stuff that you don't want hitting your clothes so make sure that you have some kind of a grooming uh smock or an apron to protect your clothes okay last but not least we're going to
talk about carrying cases you want to go ahead and invest in a carrying case okay something that is going to go ahead and store all your equipment safely so that when you pack it up you can go ahead and safely go ahead and walk into the salon with all of your stuff now these cases come in different types and
styles there's different caddies but if you cannot afford a case at this time make sure to invest in like little cardboard caddies so you can go ahead and put all of your blades in right so that everything's secure and that you seal it tight that all of your scissors have a case for it so anything that you
have you want to go ahead and put into a case okay so that it's nice and secure and now if you've got a kind of an alternate carrying case or something like that you can go ahead and put your scissors in a case in a backpack for the time being until you go ahead and actually get a
professional case so that you can carry your grooming equipment okay so now that we know what is part of the basic equipment the basic set know that there's a lot more to it and we're going to be expanding on this as we go through this journey together but this should get you on the road at least
you can know what your initial investment would be if you were thinking about entering the world of professional grooming okay and then you can kind of start preparing what is the stuff that you really need um there's gonna be a lot a lot of equipment as you step into the world of grooming so we're trying to
kind of whittle it down break it down to the basics so that you're not going ahead and running around and uh spending a lot of time looking for things that you can get answers for um from someone who has done it before so hope this brings you guys some insight into that if you have any questions comments
please feel free to put that down below uh if you like this video thanks for clicking that thumbs up we really appreciate it thanks for subscribing we'll see you soon
Every video on Helicopterstour.com is hand-picked and reviewed by Justin — nothing is added automatically. Each one gets an original written guide and an honest rating: ⭐ 1 out of 2 means a good video worth your time, and ⭐⭐ 2 out of 2 means a great one we would recommend to anyone. The videos belong to their creators — every page links back to the original channel so you can subscribe and support them.
