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Recession claws into nail artistry

An exotic face is painted on a model's fingernails during a nail-design contest at the International Nail Expo in Tokyo last month. A set of sculptured nails attached to each finger may set a customer back about US$240 in a specialized salon. PHOTO: REUTERS

Air-brushed fluorescent flowers. Dayglow butterflies. Stenciled Winnie-the-Poohs.

The range of fingernail designs is limited only by the imagination of the young Japanese women who covet them.

Expensive salons offering whacky fingernail designs along with basic manicures have sprouted up all over Japan in recent years to meet booming demand.

The cost of a nail job can range from ?300 (US$2.40) for a single glittered dot glued to one pinky nail to ?30,000 for a set of 5cm "sculptured" nails attached to each finger over an afternoon.

But economic doldrums have hit purses in Japan, and the high cost of paying a professional to put mini-masterpieces on your fingertips is bringing nail art back to where it started, prompting many hip youngsters to do it themselves.

"I love nail art but I can't spend ?10,000 on it," said Megumi Yama-shita, a student studying at a nail art and design school in Tokyo.

Pointing to her carefully polished hot-pink nails, the 19-year-old said many of her friends decorated their own nails with do-it-yourself kits to avoid paying sky-high prices.

"But they can't beat the salons," she said.

Judging by the throngs that descended last month on the 16th International Nail Expo in Tokyo, the art has no shortage of faithful followers.

The annual exposition, a showcase for the latest trends in the glitzy world of nail design, attracts women in their late-teens and early 20s, with a competition between professional nail artists providing one of the biggest draws.

"Japanese nail art sets itself aside from any other market with its sense of precision, intricate touch and this overflow of creativity," said Lee Tomlinson, a California-based wholesaler of nail products who makes an annual pilgrimage to the show.

Facing a saturated home market Tomlinson, like many US wholesalers, has set his sights on the estimated 2,000 nail salons in Japan, although he has been disappointed by the fall in customer numbers as more and more women take the art into their own hands.

Many budding professional nail artists like Yamashita, who are first drilled in the basics of cuticle care before being allowed to get creative, wonder if they will be able to ply their trade once they graduate.

After devoting long hours to pass nationally authorized exams, many manicurist-cum-nail artists end up twiddling only their own thumbs while they wait for a job.

"With their talent, Japanese manicurists could be busier," Tomlinson said.

In a bid to make nail art more accessible, Tokyo businessman Yohji Fujiwara opened Japan's first chain of cut-price nail salons, called Nailland, in some greater-Tokyo supermarkets last year.

Nailland offers simple nail care and painting for ?1,000, about a third of what customers could expect to pay elsewhere.

"We are getting first-time customers of all ages -- mainly housewives who dream of being pampered," said Satomi Hanashiro, a Nailland shop manager.

Fujiwara says the chain was also an investment that could help the rising number of students graduating from nail schools without jobs.

"I want to make sure their talents do not go to waste," he said.
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