NAIL BITES

Jelly on a plate

Accessible art

Esteemed nail artist Sophie Harris-Greenslade has designed a collection of press-on nails that launched in Boots stores in August. Named after Harris- Greenslade’s blog and social media handle, The Illustrated Nail, the press-on nails come in two designs.

Hazy Daze are soft pink iridescent almonds with rainbow floral-pattered feature nails; while To the Moon & Back are slightly shorter and coffinshaped, painted black with white illustrations of the moon, stars and sun. Some are fully painted while alternating nails have a white half-moon design.

The press-on nails were created in collaboration with licensed health and beauty products supplier H&A.

“Obviously, I can’t do everyone’s nails as much as I’d like to, so this felt like the next step as it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while… my aim was to create a wearable style with a slightly shorter length and fun designs.

With more designs to follow, I can’t wait to expand the range”, said Harris-Greenslade.

Harris-Greenslade is part of OPI’s A Team of top techs and regularly creates nail art designs for the brand’s seasonal collections.

WARM WELCOME

Entity Beauty, distributed in the UK by The Creative Beauty Group, has brought famed US tech Robert Nguyen on board as creative director.

Nguyen’s career has focused largely on product development and brand leadership, and he has appeared on US reality TV show Nail’d It as a judge. “With this move, I am looking forward to focusing on carrying on Entity’s heritage of ushering in the next generation of empowering products and nail technicians”, he said.

US AND CANADA NAIL SALONS ATTRACT BAD PRESS

Nail salons across the pond have been making headlines for all the wrong reasons. In August, videos appeared on social media of large-scale brawls in two salons – one in Brooklyn, New York City, and one in Chilliwack, Canada – which both started when clients were unhappy with the treatments they received.

In Brooklyn, both a client and employee of Red Apple Nails are facing assault charges after a fight broke out over whether or not the client and her grandmother had paid for their pedicures, coupled with the client’s anger at an unsatisfactory eyebrow wax.

Video footage emerged of salon employees restraining the client and her grandmother and hitting the women with a broom. The local community began protesting for the salon to be closed down.

In Canada, a client found herself locked inside HD Nails by staff after refusing to pay the full amount for a manicure she wasn’t happy with. The argument turned physical when the client demanded her technician fix her nails.

The client and five members of staff can be seen pulling and hitting at each other, and at one point an employee chases the client through the salon. Meanwhile, in Temecula, California, Young’s Nail Spa was fined more than $1.2 million (£940,000) for misclassifying workers, failing to pay them regular wages and forcing them to work long hours without breaks or overtime.

Life saver

Techs are been warned to look out for signs of ill health in clients’ misshapen nails, after a woman who asked for advice on the strange way in which her fingernail was growing received a cancer diagnosis two weeks later.

Jean Williams Taylor, who lives in Wigan, posted a picture on Facebook of her curved fingernail, which was growing at a noticeably downward angle, and asked her friends if they had seen anything similar before.

After taking their advice to see her GP and having blood tests, a chest X-ray, CT and PET scans, a breathing test, heart scan, an MRI and a lung biopsy, Williams Taylor found out she had cancer in both lungs. The condition that caused her nail to grow in this way is called clubbing of the fingers and is associated with diseases of the lungs and heart.

Key skills

Shoreditch Nails in London has taken recruitment issues into its own hands by launching an academy. The salon is running two four-week part-time courses from its salon for groups of six students. The accredited courses aim to teach all the skills required to work at a salon or freelance in a relaxed environment. Students will be qualified to provide manicures, pedicures, gel-polish application and simple “minimal” nail art upon completion.