The Three Greatest Challenges Facing the Nail Business
Nails Magazine. By Doug Schoon. Photo:Steve Woods. The nail salon industry grew quickly in the late 1970s and flourished during the ’80s and early ’90s, with business leveling off by the late ’90s. Today the nail business is besieged by a series of concerns that threaten future growth. This article explores three important issues I see that face the nail industry and offers solutions that will benefit everyone. There is a general lack of proper information and/or advanced training. Forty-nine out of 50 American states require nail technicians to receive a formal nail school education and pass an examination to earn a license to perform professional services. States typically require between 300 to 750 hours of specialized education before students can take the licensing exam. Nail technicians are trained and skilled professionals, but there is a problem. In many schools, incorrect or outdated information and myths are often taught as facts, and this has led to confusion and misunderstanding. To make matters worse, some of this misinformation is repeated on state exams, forcing school instructors to teach students to answer certain questions with the incorrect answers in order for the student to pass the exam. I have a high regard for all educators in the nail industry, especially school instructors, but they can only teach the information they have. Misinformation and myths have proven very difficult to eliminate.
For example, a commonly taught myth is “You’ve got to rough up the nail plate or the product won’t stick.” The fact is this unnecessary practice weakens the natural nail plate. Nail enhancement products in the ’80s had poor adhesion to the natural nail plate and required more aggressive filing to prevent product lifting. Luckily, the improved technology in today’s products require only a very light touch with a 180-grit file, removing almost nothing from a properly cleaned nail plate. There is no longer any need to “etch” the nail if quality products are correctly applied.