Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 18, 1995 TAG: 9504180100
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: KATHLEEN WILSON STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
A runway frock worn by a Miss America contestant for the evening gown competition?
Nope.
It's Jennifer Posey's fingernails.
From under a hair dryer at Nancy's Hair Salon, the 22-year-old proudly displayed her 2-inch long airbrushed acrylic tips.
``I LOVE them,'' she gushed. ``They are definitely the wildest I've ever had. Even Dad said they were wild. They were the pick of the crop.''
Like many girls, Posey first gave false nails a shot when preparing for a high school prom. It's been an addiction ever since.
Although Posey's coiffure is courtesy of Nancy's, her talons are works of art from Lee Nails in Tanglewood Mall.
Lee Nails is just one of the new assembly line-type nail salons popping up in the Roanoke Valley. It's impossible to say how many there are because they're grouped with hair salons in business tax records. But Deanna Fore, a deputy tax clerk in Roanoke, said there has been ``a big boom in the last year.''
Such salons have been staples of metropolises like San Francisco and Manhattan for more than a decade. You'll find one on every block, right alongside Chinese restaurants, delis, immigrant grocers and the local Gap.
Back then, about the most outlandish thing they could do with your nails was stick a decal on them. Now, you can choose nails that look like Coke cans, the car door of NASCAR driver Rusty Wallace, or just airbrushed pink flamingos. Under green palm trees.
Depending on the condition of your own nails, there are a number of treatment options. They range from gluing acrylic tips to your nails and then strengthening them by either wrapping each nail in silk or linen or, most commonly, applying a polymer resin. The processes take about 45 minutes.
Standard upkeep requires that the nails be ``filled in`` about every two weeks at a cost of about $15. ``Fill ins'' are just re-applications of the polymer resin to make your nails even, not lumpy. Natural nails are thin; the false ones are thick.
This is one of those times Roanoke can say it's good to be 10 years behind the big city trends. Back in the `80s in New York City, they charged you five bucks a nail. That's right. Fifty dollars for nails that split, ripped, and often broke within less than a week.
Stiff competition and improved technology have lowered the price of a full set to between $25 and $30, depending on how long and elaborate the client wants her nails to be.
Yes, gone are the days when someone like June Cleaver might sit down with Madge the Palmolive Lady to treat herself to an occasional $5 manicure.
Competition from assembly-line nail salons - like Lee Nails in Tanglewood Mall and Top Nails at Crossroads Mall - has caused a number of independent manicurists to close their businesses and start plying their trade at beauty salons.
``It's hard to compete,'' said Rhonda McGuire. ``Before they got here, I was turning customers away. It was next to impossible to even get an appointment to get your nails done.''
McGuire is a former independent who now is a nail technician at Hairport.
``I saw it coming three years ago at a trade show in Dallas,'' she said.``I just never expected it to get here so fast. Now they are coming out of the woodwork.''
Because of their fast assembly-line process and seven-days-a-week, morning, noon and night hours, you don't even need an appointment.
Nail salons are required to be licensed just as beauty parlors are by the state. But there also is a Roanoke City ordinance that requiring the health department to check each establishment annually.
According to the City Health Department and the Better Business Bureau, there have been no health or sanitation problems or any complaints filed.
Lee Nails and Top Nails are both owned and operated by groups of Vietnamese who moved to Roanoke from Los Angeles.
Why Roanoke?
``We traveled around to find a new home and picked Roanoke,'' explained Sony Nguyen, manager of Top Nails. ``We wanted to get away from the violence. Here, there is peace. It's a very nice town.''
Top Nails, which can service 18 different customers at one time, is the area's largest nail salon.
Like those in bigger cities, the shop is open seven days a week - morning, noon and night.
Even for independents who've been affected, the arrival of this nailorama has its positive points.
``More and more people are having their nails done now, so I think there's still plenty of business around for everyone.'' McGuire said. ``I'd rather be in the hair salon because that way I get the hairdresser's clients too.''
Lee Nails, opened just six months ago, is receiving rave reviews from its clientele.
``This is the best place in town and I want you to put that in your newspaper,'' declared Heather Compton. ``They're fast, professional and [the nails] not only look good, they last long.''
Looking at Compton's long, ruby-red nails, you have to ask how an active person manages.
``I work at Macado's,'' she explained. ``And there are people in the kitchen cooking and washing dishes and serving food whose nails still look great two weeks after they've been done.''
Jennifer Posey agrees. ``When I lived in California, my nails were just as long and wild. And I worked on a tire factory line.''
She started in the office, but really wanted to load.
``A lot of people took one look at my nails and figured `she's a sissy. She won't make it.'''
But Posey did. And she's proud. You could say she was tough as, well, nails.
``I picked up and loaded 25- to 75-pound tires onto pallets - even the tires you'd put on a big truck,'' the said. ``And I never broke a nail. Never.''
Here, she works for Handy Dump. But not unloading dumpsters. Posey is a secretary and receptionist.
Last Wednesday night at 7:30 p.m., Top Nails was packed. People were taking numbers to wait.
It was the first visit for Sue Moore of Daleville.
``I love it,'' she said as a technician diligently worked on her nails. Moore is one of the lucky ones. Her own nails are beautiful, so she was just having an acrylic overlay - a process that strengthens the natural nails.
Nearby, Mary Cowden seemed awestruck. ``They look real!'' said Cowden.
``That's because they are,'' Moore told her.
When Cowden had her acrylic tips applied, there was no telling the difference between whose were real and whose weren't
When asked how many designs Lee Nails can offer, manager Danny Danh Sau answers, ``A hundred.'' He looks around the walls where all the designs are displayed. ``No, maybe two hundred,'' he said, somewhat surprised. ``Maybe three.''
It's impossible not to be impressed by the work effort and efficiency of both Top Nails and Lee Nails.
At Lee Nails, six employees each get one day off a week.
``We wash clothes, clean house, cook special food,'' Ann Nguyen answered when asked what she does with her precious day off.
On this particular evening, she's beaming.
Compton had tipped her $13.
``I thought she wrote the check wrong,'' admitted Ann.
Compton's friend, Kim Mikulak, was a first-time customer. As she observed the wilder designs on display, including rhinestone-studded nails and even some pierced with two dangling rings, she had just one question.
``Now you tell me,'' she said. ``Just how in the heck do you get into your pantyhose wearing those?''
by CNB