![]() It's an affordable luxury, like going to a restaurant versus making food at home." "It's a time that you take to allow someone else to take care of you. "A manicure is an intimate experience. You're holding hands with someone," says Amy Ling Lin, founder of Sundays nail studio in New York City. There is something to be said for the meditative, relaxing experience of a spa manicure. Add to that "a rise in anti-Asian hate and violence, and people feel their businesses are also suffering because customers don’t want to interact with Asian folks," she says.ĭuring pandemic salon closures, I discovered that even the most artfully painted nail looks amateurish with one scraggly corner sticking out. According to a joint June 2020 report by the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative and the UCLA Labor Center, of the approximately 100,000 licensed manicurists in California, an astounding 91 percent had to apply for unemployment.Įven now that nail salons have, for the most part, begun to reopen, Nguyen points out that some manicurists are just starting to repay the debt accrued or rebuild the savings lost during the pandemic. Statewide, nail workers have faced a roller coaster of closures and reopenings since the pandemic began. According to the company, appointments were booked through July. ![]() The speedy, no-frills service is no doubt appealing to those short on time and money (each manicure costs just $8). "We started working on this company towards the end of 2018, pre-COVID, because we really believed people wanted an 'in-and-out' option." Apte sees Clockwork as "an amenity" that could one day be available in places like corporate buildings, retail stores, and airports. "Our goal is to be an express option for nail treatments," Clockwork’s founder, Renuka Apte, tells me. And it's not the only manicure robot in the works: Companies like Nimble (an at-home robot) and Coral (still a prototype) are also aiming to get a piece of the market. In about 10 minutes, all 10 of your nails are painted. Clients strap in, finger by finger, and the robot's mechanical brush fills in concentric circles of polish. No extra perks are included.The machine behind the whirring is Clockwork, a nail-painting robot only slightly bigger than a dorm-room mini-fridge, and it began accepting manicure appointments in June. You can opt to pledge $300 for the higher reward tier if you're feeling generous, but as far as we can tell, the only difference is the additional $50 expenditure. At the lower, $249 level, you can secure yourself a Nimble device, three capsule sets, and a charging cable in the box. ![]() Though you'll want to take it with a grain of salt given the history of crowdfunding platforms, Nimble says it will start shipping the first batch of units within 5-6 months with an estimated delivery window of October 2021. More features have yet to be announced, but Nimble has stated that they will make their way to the app through software updates down the line. In addition to letting you know when it's time for a manicure, a customer support chat function is available within the app for added convenience. From it, you can order new polishes, keep track of stats, upload photos to social media, and more. To tie it all together, Nimble is compatible with a dedicated app that talks to the device over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. The company asserts its capsules are vegan, non-toxic, and recyclable, as well as "13-free." Backers will be able to make their color choices at the end of the campaign. At its entry-level reward tier, the Nimble comes with three capsule sets containing three capsules each, for a total of nine nail polish capsules. While proprietary "pods" aren't exactly ideal given the uncertainty of Kickstarter campaigns, they do come in a variety of colors including nudes, reds, and bare shades. ![]() As for the types of nail polish you can use with Nimble, it is limited to capsules available from the company itself. ![]()
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