Cash in Hand

Christina Nguyen has learned that some brands of nail polish chip easily while others shine for a long time. And that the spectrum of colors at her fingertips, from coco brown to purple passion, offers more opportunity than either a life in Vietnam or a minimum-wage job in America.

Nguyen learned this at her husband’s cousin’s salon, a makeshift shop above an apartment on La Cienega Boulevard, where she earned more than $400 a week while saving up for her own salon. She bought Kimberly’s Nails, in the Fairfax District, from Kimberly herself nine years ago.

By hunching over a manicure table and inhaling fumes for 10 hours a day, seven days a week, Nguyen and thousands of other Vietnamese immigrants have embraced the entrepreneurial spirit of their adopted country. The evidence of their success, the ubiquitous nails-only salon, is as close as the nearest mini-mall, just down the row from the doughnut shop and dry cleaners. Their growing stake in the $5.7-billion nails industry has been a boon for frugal women who enjoy a little pampering. But the trend is also the bane of many manicurists in full-service beauty shops who complain that low prices--as little as $6 for the basics--sometimes mean sloppy or unsanitary work.

No one keeps precise figures, but industry watchers estimate that nearly 25% of the nail businesses nationwide are Vietnamese-owned; in California, it’s 80%. In the Los Angeles area, want ads for nail technicians far outnumber any other category in a Vietnamese-language newspaper. From its headquarters in Westminster, the glossy monthly Saigon Nails dispenses product news and details on the latest techniques to thousands of nail technicians and salon owners

Nguyen, 34, speaks for many of her peers when she describes the attraction to nails: “I can make more money doing nails than anything else. Besides, I also get to be my own boss.”

Immigrants traditionally carve out a groove in the economy, and Vietnamese women gravitated toward nail salons beginning in the late ‘70s (just as Cambodians did toward doughnut shops). The beauty business, especially in looks-conscious California, has long been a haven for newcomers: Swedish masseuses, French hairdressers, Russian facialists.

“When we look at how these various ethnic groups fall into the urban economy, we have to remember that when they come to the U.S. they find their niche based on American social needs,” says USC sociology professor Edward Park, who specializes in ethnic economies. “The Vietnamese people certainly didn’t start doing nails because there were a lot of salons in Vietnam.”

The nail trade is relatively easy to learn, requiring only 400 hours of training plus a passing grade on written and practical state licensing exams. Both instruction and tests are offered in several languages. And many schools help find jobs for the graduates who don’t go to work for friends or family. Or, for as little as $1,500, a manicurist can rent space and purchase the manicuring tables and instruments to start their own shop.

“There are lots of jobs, and you don’t have to speak a lot of English,” says Dan Hoang, a spokesman for Saigon Nails. “And after you do nails for about one year, you can save enough money to open your own salon and be your own boss.”

At Kim Anh Academy of Beauty, sandwiched between a dry cleaners and supermarket in a Westminster shopping center, people of all ages learn how to polish a nail, trim a cuticle and cement an acrylic (fake nail). Those who can’t afford to quit their jobs for the full-time, 10-week program, a $400 investment, may take night classes for five months.

On a recent Saturday, 100 students from both groups go over lessons in their textbook, “Milady’s Art & Science of Nail Technology,” then spend the rest of the afternoon perfecting their manicures and pedicures. Unless they have put in at least 100 hours of practice time, the trainees must work on plastic dummies.

With two weeks left till graduation and a job offer from a friend with a Huntington Beach salon, Kathy Pham has already completed the requisite 80 acrylics, 60 tips (plastic extensions) and 40 wraps (reinforcement of existing nails), plus 20 manicures and pedicures. So she invited some friends to come by for free pampering. Lien Nguyen selects sunset orange polish to match her dress for an upcoming wedding.

“I figure the more I practice, the better I will get,” says Pham, 29, who was laid off from a job assembling computer keyboards. “I want to do nails because I want to make lots of money.”

Meanwhile, classmates Nhan Cochran and Vu Luong are practicing on each other. Luong, 26, one of the small but growing number of men entering the profession, sits patiently as Cochran paints his nails bright purple. She earns a 93 for her work, a big improvement over the 78 she had scored earlier. “I put too much polish on the cuticle,” she explains.

Academy administrator Dang Nguyen has seen male enrollment in the manicure program rise 20% since the school opened two years ago. Many of the men end up in salons owned by their wives. When Luong graduates, he will move to Florida to run his sister’s bustling business.

While the average manicurist makes $477 per week including tips, according to Redondo Beach-based Nails magazine, some of the students have already set their sights much higher--on some of the booming markets across the country.

“I’d like to go to Ohio,” Cochran says. “My friend owns a salon there and tells me you can make $2,000 to $3,000 a month.”

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But manicurists in nails-only shops often work 12 hours a day, six or seven days a week, mostly on commission, reaping 40% to 60% of each service. Some rent work space for a flat fee. It is not unusual to skip vacations, holidays, even lunch breaks. No customer is refused, even if she arrives past closing time.

“Sometimes it’s really hard,” Nguyen says. “When you own your own business, you have to be there all the time. Sometimes I get really tired.”

She had been a second-grade teacher in Vietnam but could not continue that career in Los Angeles. Now fluent in the language that held her back, Nguyen sometimes longs for the classroom. Working only on weekdays would give her more time with her young children. But she would miss her longtime customers and the five full-time manicurists who share her salon.

Vinh Nguyen’s dream of someday becoming the boss took six years to come true. She and her daughter, Anh Ton Nguyen, took over EXP Nails in Manhattan Beach a month ago. It had succumbed to the competition, but the women think they can make a go of it. They even kept the old name and phone number because business is tough enough without building a clientele from scratch.

So far, Vinh Nguyen says, she has made enough to cover the $400 rent, even though she’s taking more than the 40% commission she got at her previous salon. She hopes to hire two nail technicians to fill empty booths but isn’t sure how to go about it.

Tips on what to look for in an employee are just the kind of service that Saigon Nails hopes to provide. Until the magazine was launched in November, Vietnamese nail technicians had no place to turn, Hoang says.

“We started up because the profession was getting so large and we felt it was important to help communicate what was going on and to tell people how to do business,” he says. “There was a missing link between the Vietnamese and American nail technicians, and a lot of people in our community feel alienated.”

Indeed, many in the upper trenches of the nail business view Vietnamese-owned salons as a threat to the industry’s image. According to Cyndy Drummey, editor of the 55,000-circulation monthly Nails, the immigrant manicurists rarely take advantage of continuing education classes and many fail to follow guidelines for sanitizing implements.

Consumer complaints have risen amid the boom in salons, licensed and unlicensed, but the state Board of Barbering and Cosmetology has only 17 inspectors to police them. Pamela Ramsey, executive officer of the board, says health problems, such as nail fungus, linked to dirty tools have eased in recent years with increased awareness among all manicurists.

Thuy “Tony” Le, owner of 52 Nail Studio salons nationwide, says anxious competitors unfairly single out Vietnamese owners over the cleanliness issue. “I’m not denying that some of the Asian salons are dirty,” he says, “but there are also a lot of other shops that are very clean. The problem is that one bad store makes the whole industry look bad.”

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The number of salons nationwide has more than doubled since the early 1980s, a boom triggered by the invention of acrylics. And the vast majority are nails-only shops, which critics liken to sweatshops because of the long hours employees put in.

In some cities, the proliferation of salons has forced prices to hit rock-bottom. Ten years ago, the average cost for a full set of extensions--either acrylics or wraps--was about $37. Today, the average price is closer to $22. The average cost of a manicure has also dropped, from $20 to $8.

“People feel they automatically have to lower their price,” says Margaret Howell, a manicurist at Giovanni Salon in Malibu, who charges $15 for a basic manicure. “But if you’re giving great quality you can have your prices at what you want to charge.”

At the discount salons, Howell says, customers don’t get the attention they would in a higher-end salon or full-service beauty parlor. The emphasis is on fast service rather than a long-term relationship. She doesn’t worry about the discounters, she adds, because they draw from a different customer base: “It all depends on what kind of clientele are you trying to attract. Do you want the Kmart shopper or the Nordstrom client?”

But the competition has become so intense here that many salon owners are leaving for the untapped markets in states such as Maryland and Louisiana. California has about 7,000 nails-only salons and 55,000 licensed manicurists, more than any other state, including New York, which has just 9,300 technicians and 3,200 salons.

Le, of Westminster, quit an engineering job and now owns salons from Connecticut to Kansas and as far south as Alabama. In Alabama, he gets $10 for a manicure; in New York, $15. His only operation in California, though, is the Kim Anh Academy, where he recruits many of his employees.

“The market here is saturated,” Le says. “The cost became so low that there’s no way you can make it. I knew if opened up somewhere else, business would be much better.”

In the seven years since discount salons began to pop up in shopping centers, the nail business overall has quadrupled in size, from a $932-million industry to $5.7 billion today. That’s a good thing, most would agree. Another positive: The controversy over sanitation has forced all salons to clean up their acts, Drummey says.

But the salons’ largest contribution, perhaps, has been in opening up the wonders of a hand and forearm massage--arguably the best part of a standard manicure--to the average woman. Watching as a sweet-smelling lotion disappears into your tired skin is no longer a pleasure enjoyed only by ladies with alligator handbags.

Ann Bradley discovered Kimberly’s Nails nine years ago and returns almost weekly, usually on Saturday mornings. At first she just got the manicure, but the Silver Lake resident admits that, nowadays, she often indulges in the manicure-pedicure package, a $15 deal, along with the neck and shoulder massage, a popular perk the salon recently added.

“These salons are cost-effective, time-efficient and offer a high-quality service,” says Bradley, 42. “I wouldn’t be getting my nails done if had to pay $25, but I can spend $6 on a manicure every week to pamper myself, so I do.”