Nail Salons’ Gloss Is Worn Thin by Economic Woes

So you started getting those long acrylic nails glued on at the local salon a few years ago--the kind that can skewer olives from a deep martini glass, the ones that keep you in slip-on shoes because you can’t tie bows any more.

Then a recession hits. What do you do? Eschew your nails? Never! Because beauty is recession-proof, industry experts contend, one of those low-cost luxuries that keep us happy when we can’t afford the big-ticket items we really want.

But a funny thing is happening on the way to the Southland salon this recession. The Southern California nail-care market is so saturated and prices are so low that some salon owners are having their first brush with trouble during the recession.

“I’m hearing of a lot of people moving to other parts of the country (from Southern California) to do nails,” said Jackie Randolph, a Washington salon owner and head of the National Cosmetology Assn.’s Nail TechniciansAmerica Committee. “I would not advise anyone to open a salon there unless they have an awful lot of capital.”

The Pacific Bell Yellow Pages for the greater Los Angeles area alone boasts 213 listings in the “Manicuring” section, everything from the Aurelia Adrian Institut de Beaute and Umberto Beauty Salon to Mantrap Nail Salon and Nails By: Ann, Helen, Kim, Linda, Michelle, Paul, Rose, Sharon or Wang.

The average price for a set of sculptured nails is $42 nationally and can go as high as $100 in tonier salons that specialize in service and ambience. Those same nails go for as low as $14 to $18 in many Southern California shops.

“You’re grossly saturated in Southern California,” Randolph said. “And you have a very strong ethnic market of Asian technicians” who run low-cost, high-volume salons. “It makes it very difficult to sustain the price structure.”

So difficult that in its March edition, Redondo Beach-based Nails magazine printed a cautionary note to salon owners: “There may be the temptation, during these economically trying times, to react by lowering your prices,” wrote Editor Cyndy Drummey. “If you do so, you may only harm yourself.”

In fact, the Southern California nail-care industry gives an instructive glimpse at the reality of recession, a look at who is hit first and hardest.

In Beverly Hills, where a set of sculptured nails can cost upward of $75, the recession has about the same impact as a hangnail: pesky but not terminal. In the Crenshaw area, where boulevards are choked with salons charging $18 or less for similar service, manicurists are going begging.

Yvonne Aldecoa, manicurist at Amato Hair Studio in Beverly Hills, charges from $55 to $75 for a set of acrylic nails, depending on length. She can do eight clients each day but prefers the leisurely pace of five. She wasn’t getting her wish on a recent busy Thursday.

“I’ve had my clients for years,” she said, relaxing after a hectic day of seven appointments. “They come and they go, but they eventually come back. Money is tight, but when you compare it with other things, a manicure is not that expensive.”

Drive across town, however, and the story is much different. At Genus Beauty Salon on Crenshaw Boulevard and 43rd Place, the manicurist went out of business a month ago. Janice Genus, salon owner, points to low prices and hard times as the culprit that trimmed her nail services and is also hurting her hair business.

Easter week has usually been one of Genus’ busiest times. On Holy Saturday in 1990, one beautician at the salon worked on 50 different customers. On Holy Saturday in 1991, Genus said she cut three heads of hair.

“People are being laid off, and they’re trying to keep their dollars for better use,” she said. “Business has been really, really slow since January. . . . It’s not getting better at all. It’s getting worse.”

Across Crenshaw Boulevard from Genus Beauty Salon is Antoinette’s, where a faded banner boasts sculptured nails for $17.99 and up, but a peek in the dusty window shows that the owners have closed up shop.

Less than a mile north is Angel Nails, a small salon in which manicurists are taking prices to new lows: A full set of acrylic nails costs $14, while a fill--the twice monthly touch-up service for acrylics--costs $7.99. If Antoinette’s couldn’t make it at $17.99, how can Angel make it at $14?

“If we keep the price too high, we have no customers,” manager Amy Le said. “If we go down more, we can’t make any money.”

But if business is so tough in Southern California, where does American Salon magazine come off predicting that the artificial nail business will hit $1.4 billion in 1991 revenue, up from about $1.3 billion in 1990?

And why does Jim George, the chain-smoking, tattooed president of the World International Nail & Beauty Assn. in Anaheim Hills, insist that business at his association and his wholesale nail supply warehouse and his nail file manufacturing firm is still booming?

George’s answer is simple, based on fear and hope: “Many women will spend their last dollar to look good to keep their jobs,” George insisted. “Women spend more money on themselves. It happened during the last recession.”

Well, maybe. Or maybe it’s the love of the small luxury that keeps some women returning to their neighborhood salons for a manicure while unemployment soars and financial pundits spout gloom and doom.

Bertha Bland of Westchester was drying her nails under a fan at First Class Nails in Los Angeles on a recent Thursday morning, as a soap opera crackled in the background. Her nails are of moderate length, befitting a businesswoman, and bright red in honor of spring.

“I think my nails would be the last thing to go (in the recession),” Bland said, as she waited patiently in the quiet shop near Ladera Heights and Inglewood. “I’d take my husband’s food away before I’d stop doing my nails. . . . I think you need it. It makes such a difference when your nails look nice.”