This has been a great discussion and I do see Victoria's point clearly and admire he for her zealous nature along with anyone else who feels the same.

For myself, I have been raising standards in the nail industry for 25+ years (this site is a perfect example of how I do it) by teaching and 'getting involved' at other levels. And it has worked and is working still.

Perhaps I'm a bit more cynical after ALL that time that some things have not really changed. Thee will always be good and bad as Collin says .. it is the same in every profession and place of business.

If you are one who has the time and the zeal then by all means please carry on carrying the torch for regulation but my time and energies go to my business and to making the difference where I know I CAN make a difference, which is in the area of education. I no longer wish to use energy in areas where I know I will not make a difference and even with regulation IT will not make much difference.

Some say clients are uninformed re bad practices etc .... COME ON ... they have eyes in their heads don't they? They darned well know if damage is being done to them or service is sub standard and yet many go willingly into the 'jaws of the tiger'; that's their choice. . The ones with the real intelligence or any sense at all choose the better option.

Look guys, if I could just add my 4 cents. Feel free to fire arrows at me, as I've said before on this forum I am not a nail tech - only the Slave to the Nail Mistress . But I have run my own businesses for 20+ years and know something about cheap competition, marketing and how to position a business successfully.

I don't think regulation will work, at least not in the short term. While there may be a health risk at some of these discount salons, it's not enough to inspire the government to enact new regulation. Or for local authorities to hire inspectors. The economy is in a dreadful state and will be for several years - it's simply not a high priority.

Even this happened, the discount salons would clean up and adapt. They'd still make nails fast and charge lower prices. There will always be a part of the customer base that doesn't want anything else.

Personally I think rather than worry about this, nail salons should focus on their business model and do what they can to offer perceived customer value and uniqueness.

Great competitors in any field don't worry about the competition - they play their game, their way.

Although we only have one discount salon in Stockholm, I wouldn't care less if 10 of them opened either side to Iryna's salon. They will never have her skills or her commitment to continually develop her skills and invent new techniques (4 to 6 hours of practice in the evenings at least 4 days a week).

In some way it's the difference between a drop in hairdresser and a hair stylist salon like Tony & Guy. Some people want it cheap and don't care or don't need more, and other people are willing to pay for a perceived upmarket service.

The problem comes when what you offer isn't perceived by the customer as much different from the cheap alternatives. Especially in a recession, it's easy then for the customer to save a few bucks.

How to be more unique?

1. Develop your basic skills. How many nail techs get their diploma and don't take another education for years? Technology changes, new techniques are developed - stay ahead of the curve. Hang those new diplomas on your salon wall to show your customers that you are continually developing. (preferably behind your desk so they gotta look at them for one and a half hours every visit! hee-hee!)

Work on your technique to get the time down. You could also use PopIts or Prescription Nails to offer an alternative faster service but who prefer your care and a chat, rather that having the feeling they are on a the production line in a discount salon.

2. Develop advanced skills. I'm a big fan of nail art. I know not all top techs agree and think natural is best. But because of nail art Iryna has become one of the three most known nail techs in Scandinavia in less than 18 months, and I guess most of you will recognise her name now because of the articles in Scratch.

Now, I'd be the first to admit that nail art is really not popular with our uber-conservative Swedish clients - but even those who will never wear nail art are very impressed with her skills and every visit want to see what new designs or photographs were made. This means Iryna can charge higher than average prices and has a very strong customer loyalty.

Another way to develop your advanced skills is to enter competitions. We have two wonderful international nail champions in Sweden - Karin Ström and Najet Hamilla Strand. If you enter their salons the first impression you get is all their competition cups. Incidentally, Karin has one of the largest salons and training schools in Europe, over 1000 sq ft with 19 busy nail techs (an dhtat's in a country where nails are really not popular). Now do you think they worry about discounted salons?

Everyone has to start somewhere and being a great nail artist or competition winner requires a very strong personal commitment - but if you want this, you can do it. Look at Lynn Lammers in the USA - she's come from almost nowhere to clean up in the US competitions and to win the world cup in Düsseldorf this year.

3. Extend your service offerings. Offering eye-lash extensions is an easy route - it's a days training and as a nail tech you already have the hand-eye dexterity (don't you).

In Iryna's salon she will start to offer pedicure. Here usually the beauty slaons offer this - but when Iryna visited our local salon which is very professional and managed by a well qualified beautician with many years experience, her feet were cut! We figure of it happened to her then it probably happended to other customers - so Iryna's new service won't use scrapers to remove the dead skin and we are thinking about calling it "Pedicure without Pain"

4. Improve your service. Think like a client. How can you improve the experience from the moment the client walks in until they leave? Fresh flowers in reception, a bowl of fruit in the waiting area, choice of teas or coffee (e.g. Netpresso coffee machine), a glass of sparkling wine or even a PC connected to the internet for them to use while they wait?

We've been looking into appointment booking software. The reason for this is that many of Iryna's customers are professional busy women. So we figure it would be great for them to receive an sms 24 hours before their appointment as a reminder.

The software isn't cheap at nearly £1000, but we would be the first nail salon in Stockholm (that we know of) to offer sms reminders. Makes us look more professional, and can reduce the number of occasional no-shows. Plus we can then send email or sms offers to drum up additional business!

OK - this is probably 10 cents worth now, so I'll stop blabbering and go do some of my own work.

Feel free to call me an idiot - but just think about it, ok?

BTW - these are my ideas and not Iryna's.

man i love salon geek.. This thread has been a real eye opener and very thought provoking.. thanks everyone for the input.. im going to have a very long hard look at myself now and see about making some changes..
bobsweden, thats a mighty fine post you have there!

I agree with these statements.

Legislation will not get rid of these nail techs, all that is going to happen is to force them to clean up their acts and be more educated. Then they will open legal clean licenced salon AND do even better work. They will be even busier than they are now.

It will probably then be a even bigger blow to the people who are currently worried about them now.

Re-educating these people is not going to be difficult, the things they are doing wrong i.e health and hygiene can easily be learnt from a book.

What they do have, however, is a natural born skill in making quick and precise enhancements that many other nails tech do not have.

And for those of you who think they will not suceed because of the language barrier, it is, in my opinion, very naive.

Many of these nail techs actually do speak English, they just don't want to talk to their clients because of various reasons - less faffling, more nails, more money. They focus entirely on what they are there to do. The truth is, that they understand a lot more English than you think even if they can't speak that well.

Many of the Koreans in the Nailympics don't speak very much English, did that stop them from winning...??

Nails is something you do with your hands, not something you do with your mouth.

Taking the NSS out of the NSS may seem like a good idea,
but I wonder if anyone has actually thought about the reason why they may still be in business today is because there are NSS out there....??

Their saying " work hard, make money"

They understand that you also make money when you buy products.
Did you know that lots of major brand have powder in 600gm, liquid in the gallon size? guess where they are being sold.

You may thing a joke about them being an assembly, but I will tell you this you miss all the good points, and it is one of the answer to their success and growth.
Hair stylist have assistants, most of success stylist will give the credit to their mentor.
What is the most important thing in nail enhancement, prep, prep, prep.
If you are an assistant you will do nothing but prep, any where from 20 plus client a day (that's lots of hand on) You will quickly learn pace cause you have to keep up with someone............

There is a lots more to this, and I will share it with you.
It will take me a bit cause I have to think and chose my worlds carefully so I don't end up on the soap box again

Bravo to this post, I think I gave the most reps. to this one.

What I have done about dealing with these types of nails is to protect myself. When a new client calls, I get information from them, including if they presently have nails on from these places. If they do, I give them two options: 1. I would be happy to do their nails if they come to me after having the nails removed. 2. I charge an additional $20 to remove the nails. Usually I am asked why. Then I explain to them that anyone who has come to me with these nails has developed a fungus or some type of nail disorder and let them know that my studio maintains the highest of standards in cleanliness as well as the products I use. I do this in order to protect all my clients. I need to charge extra for the time it takes to remove the inferior product and remove lifting and in every case I have seen also treat the nails for a fungus. This is an extra cost to me that I must pass on to them. Usually once people understand how important the sanitation element of doing nails is, they become concerned. Education of our clients is the best way to deal with the situation. After I have informed them, if they choose to go back to these places to have their nails done then at least we can say we have done our part to inform people. Honestly.... it isn't worth it to me to provide services to people that may bring unwanted infections or fungus into my studio.

Is this not scare mongering?
I have only seen an actual nail infection ONCE on someone from NSS.
And, yes, I have seen nail trauma and damage several times; I have only seen an infection but the one time. Do you mean to say that every single person that has come to you from NSS has an infection? A visible infection?
And 20$??? That's a bit steep, especially if not everyone has the infection. I understand making money for your 'time' for removal of the old product.
As for charging for infections that may or may not be there...that for all intents and purposes, you shouldn't be treating and should be treated by a doctor..... and telling people that you charge 20$ because anyone that comes from nss has one..... I don't know that I'd agree with that.
Meet and assess first. If there's an infection present, refer to a doctor. If there's no infection, then perform whichever service is necessary and charge accordingly.


While I'm 100% on board with educating consumers, and teaching them the right of it and while I definately feel that we as techs need to make noise to our governments to better the industry; I'm not interested in becoming party to scare mongering tactics to better my business.

Now if I've misunderstood what you wrote, then I apologize. If I didn't misunderstand, then I think I made my point.

What an interesting thread! Going over lots of old ground but it's good to see so many posts are writing from the positive perspective!

I think it's time the term 'NSS' was dropped. It always seem to be equated race. There are many salons staffed by technicians from other countries that do great nails. There are many salons staffed by technicians from this country who do dreadful nails. And vice versa!

Unfortunately there are still a lot of salons of all types that still use MMA. This isn't illegal and there is nothing anyone can do about it except focus on the importance of education.

'They' are always the people who should be doing something. Who are 'they'?

I've written several pieces for Scratch that explain the situation and what is being done about the overall standards within the service industries. Nail salons are considered as 'low risk' but they have also been highlighted as having a general lack of knowledge both about their specialism and health and safety issues.

We did have The Big Nail Debate at Excell (nice to see you there Cec!) and the whole 'NSS' issue wasn't an issue at all. Those there were professionally positive and had sufficient knowledge and insight to realise the true situation.

As with much of the good advice in this thread: be aware of your competition, provide your clients with what they actually want (not with what you want to give them) and continue to be the best you can by being open minded and continue with learning and improving. In fact being a commercial professional.

You must complain, to local councils, your mp, health and safety, and the complain to the Dept of Trade about the 'sale' that goes on forever, which is not allowed. While we have no regulations it is difficult to get the authorities to take complaints seriously. I think they are a serious threat to the industry. Its hard to prove use of MMA, so I have sent a constant stream of reports to local councils about how dirty the local NSS are.

We must all complain to the authories, your MP, local councils, the local press, and keep on. I have found that it is best to complain about the lack of sanitation rather then MMA, because it is so easy to see how dirty they are. I have also complained to the Dept of Trade about the constant 'sale" which is not allowed. They are definitely a theat to the industry, our prices have actually gone down over the last 10 years, because of them. They are breaking all the rules, lets keep on complaining to get a level playing field.

What an amazing thread!! Took ages to read but so pleased I did. We are all on a journey of learning, NSS learn from us, we learn from NSS, young learn from old, old learn from young. We all have something to offer. Wisdom is priceless, I love "wise owls" (enough of the "old").

i do not know how old this post is but i am going to say i think this is ridiculous how they can hurt people and damge thier nails and people keep going back, whilst i did my beauty therapy training i went to do work experience in a nss (although did not know that to start) i did not let them know i did creative nail training nd just focused on my beauty at the time, i have never saw how unhygenic people could be refolding used towels after each client and using on the next, and the nails the owner used the same dirty files on each client used the same towel throught he whole day and even the same tissue piece that was put down! i got told to polish a few of these enhancements and the were just clear but they looked grey and had to be polished, (29.99 a set!) i never saw pink and whites being done. i soon learned that most clients nails had bacterial infections due to the files and brushes, and the owner was using this as her selling point saying they would need enhancements for at least a year to cover it!! and yes these clients still go there now although i have since left. and are you sure there is nothing we can do about this

I will hold my hands up and say that I have not as yet had chance to read this thread, but I have every intention of doing so. What I do find interesting though is that I found out this week that someone I know who is a nail tech and teaches nails to others at a local college went to a NSS to get her nails done as she said "she doesn't have time to do her own nails" now that is scary

Amongst other things one thing springs to mind PopIts!!!!!!!!

anne xx

Yes, It would be great if we could do something about this but I do agree with Geeg on this one. We are never going to get rid of the NSS. I prefer to work on educating my clients and letting my work speak for itself.

There are some people that will use NSS regardless. For example, a local landlady I know.... went in the pub last week and she was pulling a pint with 5 - yes 5! Blue plasters on her nails. I asked her what happened and she said her nails were cut and damaged at the NSS. Within two days, she was back there having them done. They did them on top of the cuts and bruises! She let me know that she had been going there for years because it was quick. She knows about MMA / hygeine etc and is quite happy to carry on going there.

In fact, the whole reason I got into nails in the first place is that I went to a NSS salon myself years ago. This made me want to do nails as I was sure I could do better!

Sam xx

Since starting this thread ive had a little change of opinion.

Ive had many clients come to me for spray tans and they end up telling me about their nails and they had previously been to an NSS salon and their nails were in awful condition one lady said to me that her nails were hurting her so much that it brought tears to her eyes.

Another lady said she would like different kind of nails rather than whacking on white tips and putting on Acrylic, she would like the choice of them being painted etc and she would also like to be able to go somewhere to get them removed or rebalanced.

So really because NSS are quick they dont always get the clients yes they may get 1 client who needs their nails done quick but 80% of the time that client wont be loyal and wont go back due to the after math.