Polished and Relaxed

In the rear of Chinoiserie, a Studio City nail salon with soft-pink walls, jade-green carpet and a low-grade Asian theme, 10 little girls are getting their nails done late on a Friday afternoon. Mia, the birthday girl, who is turning 9, shows off her shiny pink fingernails. On each thumb she sports a tiny multicolored flower with a rhinestone center. Now all the girls want rhinestones. Ellen, Mia’s mom, gives the OK. She does not want her last name used, however, for fear of offending the uninvited.

Although apron-decorating, pizza-making and a movie are planned for later in the evening, there is no question this will be the highlight of the birthday party. The girls, suddenly little women, are positively giddy. Mia pulls the lollipop from her mouth, her tongue and lips stained candy red, to declare, “I feel prettiful.” A moment later she adds, “I made that up.”

Only in Los Angeles? Probably not. Some 7-year-old Manhattanite is likely being fussed over this very second. But Los Angeles is the nail capital of the universe. “Southern California is the bellwether location for the nail business,” says Cyndy Drummey, editor and publisher of Nails, a monthly trade magazine based, not surprisingly, in Los Angeles. “Whether it’s a business trend or a style trend, things start in California and travel across the country.” And it’s been that way for some time. After all, Los Angeles is the birthplace of the nails-only salon.

In 1969, Jessica Vartoughian opened Jessica Nail Clinic on Canon Drive in Beverly Hills. (Today it is in Sunset Plaza, among the chichi boutiques and Euro cafes.) “When I opened the doors,” she says, “it was the first nail salon in the whole world.”

Today there are approximately 50,000 in the United States alone, according to Nails magazine. Three of them are within three blocks of my Santa Monica apartment. And this is hardly extraordinary. Drive down any major Los Angeles street and start counting. Soon you’ll run out of French-tipped fingers.

Cute Nail, Princess Nails, Marvelous Nails, Magic Nails, Sassy Nails, Happy Nails, Nails Nails, USA Nails, Love Nail. The simple but catchy names are a hallmark of the Vietnamese-owned salons that industry estimates put at about 80% of local nails-only business.

It is the Vietnamese entrepreneurs who are responsible for the explosion of nail salons in Los Angeles over the last 20 years, the resulting inevitable price competition and the fact that today nearly everyone can afford a salon manicure. According to Drummey, the national average for a manicure is $12. Yet in Los Angeles, many would be loath to pay more than $6 or $7. And it isn’t as if you have to hunt to find such prices. “There are a lot of discount salons in Southern California,” says Drummey. Take Lanny, which the Guide to Beauty Los Angeles 2002 (published by Moxly) named “the most popular inexpensive nail salon in Los Angeles.”

Located on 3rd Street near Sweetzer Avenue and surrounded by independent fashion boutiques and pricey lifestyle stores, Lanny Nails attracts a crowd of stylish twenty- and thirtysomethings who pile in wearing tank tops and hip-huggers and take seats at the side, waiting for their turns at a $7 man or $9 ped. While short on atmosphere, Lanny delivers quick, efficient factory-line service.

Across the street at Susan’s Nails, where a manicure is $6 and a pedicure $10, the mood is more serene. Thirty-eight-year-old Denise Lawler, who works in movie advertising, used to go to Lanny. But one day it was booked, so she wandered in here. She’s never gone back. “It’s calm. It’s fast. It’s clean. They’re sweet and they do an amazing job,” she says, resting a copy of People magazine on her lap. “They also have the National Enquirer here,” she says. “You don’t want to buy it but you always want to read it.” And there’s never enough time in line at the supermarket.

For many women, getting their nails done is their only down time. Over and over, women say it forces them to sit still and relax. (Of course there’s always that one person yammering on her cell phone--the double-A type.) No one’s reading Dostoevsky at the nail salon. InStyle is more the right speed. Vanity Fair is too heavy. Some women close their eyes or simply zone out. Even watching their hands soak in that moisturizing bath can be meditative, a far cry from the office, the kids, the 405. Think of it as hand yoga, a manual om.

For others, the experience is more social. At Susan’s, two women sitting near Lawler discuss the horseradish mashed potatoes at Campanile in reverential tones. Their conversation turns to the new cathedral downtown, then the Agape Church. The exchange would be forgettable except for one small thing. The women are strangers. And not to get too philosophical--after all, we are talking nails--but something happens when women get their nails done.

They’re comfortable. They’re not rushing off anywhere, at least not till they’re semi-dry. The walls come down. And they start talking. Los Angeles becomes a smaller town in nail salons. The rules change.

“I think nail salons and barbershops are places where people tend to talk freely,” offers Kamilah Earl, a 27-year-old accountant, as her toenails are transformed with a sports-car electric blue. That is certainly the case here, at Nails on L.A., a wildly popular Compton salon where manicures run $5.99, pedicures are $9.99 and intricate nail art is the specialty. (A display shows 104 sample designs, from interlocking rhinestone Cs to tiny watermelon.) It’s a nonstop social hour.

“You see a lot of the same faces,” says Earl, who generally drops by every two weeks on a Wednesday or Thursday afternoon. “I talk to everybody. I don’t know her,” she says, gesturing to the woman getting a manicure a few feet away. “But I talk to her. We might talk about, ‘look at that color.’ Or ‘look at her hair.’ Women gossip.”

Meanwhile, patrons, often with their small children in tow, keep pouring through the door. It’s like Macy’s the night before Christmas. Denise Lee, who has the station closest to the entrance, greets each person with “Hi honey.” Many know her by name. Some women ask if their favorite manicurists are on. (With 20-plus employees working in the long, narrow salon at any one time, it’s hard to tell.) If the answer is no, some say they’ll come back the next day. Others settle for someone else.

Earl has been coming here for about 10 years, since just after the L.A. riots when the place burned down. She came here even for a spell after she moved to Marina del Rey. “I tried a couple other places but they couldn’t shape my nails right or they would pop off,” she says. Besides, she adds, Denise and her husband Michael, who also works at Nails on L.A., “are like family. I know all her kids. Me and her were pregnant together. I got my nails done here for my graduation, my prom, when I was married.”

This kind of loyalty is not unusual.

“Because we sit there and we touch them and hold their hand, there’s quite a bond,” explains veteran nail tech Dawn Dale of Atocha in Pacific Palisades. “A handful of my girlfriends who started as clients came to my wedding.”

Certain salons lend themselves to being social more than others. In part this is simply a matter of how they are set up. At Jessica, for instance, the chairs in the main room ring the edge and face toward the center. The Jessica clientele also tends to be from a certain social strata, which facilitates casual conversation. These are women who can comfortably afford the $25 manicures and $30 pedicures.

“It’s the prime example of the ladies-who-lunch crowd,” says Hannah Lee, managing editor of Nails. “You can go there on a Friday morning at 10 and it’s packed. They all have standing appointments. It’s a very social situation.” In fact, there is a group of middle-aged women who met at Jessica years ago. They became friends. Now they all get their nails done together Friday morning, then head down the street to Clafoutis, a French sidewalk cafe, for lunch. It’s a sorority.

Beverly Hills Nail Design III, at the top of Beverly Glen near Mulholland Drive in Beverly Glen Circle, also feels very insider. Not intimidating, just insular. “It’s a neighborhood place,” says Colette Ament, a 50-ish mother and former actress who lives nearby. “I almost always see an acquaintance here.”

Ament has tried Jessica and other spots. But she comes here because it’s convenient. “I have my nails done once a week,” she says. “So it has to be convenient. It’s not like going to the hairdresser.

“They do a good a job,” she adds. “Why go to Jessica and pay three times the price? It’s stupidly expensive.” (For the record, Jessica is only about twice the price.)

Whether an expensive manicure equals a better manicure is a matter of some debate. “I believe you get what you pay for,” says Dale, at Atocha in the Palisades, who charges $15 for a manicure and $28 for a pedicure. On the other hand, says Drummey, “I’ve had a beautiful $6 manicure and an awful hundred-dollar manicure. Like any service or product you can buy, there’s a wide range. The consumer has to be very discerning. It’s kind of a buyer-beware situation.” Even within a particular salon, some technicians have better reputations than others.

One thing that generally holds true: The inexpensive manicures and pedicures tend to be short on extras. If there’s any hand or foot massage, it’s usually a cursory thing, over before you can really sink in and enjoy it.

The cheaper services also clock in much faster: 15 or 20 minutes, instead of the 60 minutes some of the higher-end places advertise.

“Really, there are reasons for going to both the high-end salons and the discount salons,” says Nails managing editor Lee. Not everyone wants to spend an hour getting their nails done. In fact, many women say the reason they bother going to a salon rather than doing her nails themselves is that it’s quicker.

“But sometimes you want to pamper yourself a little more,” Lee says. This is where a place like L.A. Vie L’Orange comes into play. This West Hollywood hideaway features wicker cocoon-like cabanas, groovy mood music, aromatherapy candles, blooms of fresh flowers that would do Martha Stewart proud, afghans for those chilly mornings, the relaxing sounds of a trickling fountain and an interior right out of some elegant Southeast Asia resort.

There’s an arrangement of lucky bamboo at each station and little satchels in which clients can stash their jewelry while nails are done. About one-third of the salon’s patrons visit in groups. Often it’s for a wedding shower or baby shower.

Of course, it’s not only women who get manicures and pedicures. Men are becoming more common fixtures in nail salons these days. And it isn’t necessarily whom you’d expect.

“Real men do get manicures,” says Vivien Harrison, a middle-aged schoolteacher and regular at Hollywood’s C.T. Nails II. A couple of chairs away, CLS Limo driver Nelson Hayes is having his nails done.

“A lot of our guys do this,” says the 57-year-old. “We’re around a lot of high-profile people and we want to have nice-looking hands. I can never do them as well as the ladies.”

Not long ago, Hayes had a manicure in England. He paid $30. “They didn’t even have tables,” he says. “She just put a towel on her knees. I was so used to California. It’s an industry out here. It’s a culture.”

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Leslee Komaiko is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer and frequent contributor to Calendar Weekend.