Are your nails up to scratch?

With salons shut, Londoners have become masters of their own manicure. Pass the polish, says Emma McCarthy
ASOS
Emma McCarthy24 June 2020

Since lockdown began, many of us have had more time on our hands. Time which, it seems, we’re also choosing to spend on our hands.

With nail salons in the capital closed for the past three months and counting, Londoners have sought to become masters of their own manicures. According to leading market researchers NPD Group, sales of nail care products have skyrocketed as the market saw double-digit growth in the first weeks of UK lockdown, with sales continuing to accelerate in step with time spent at home.

London-led beauty brand Nails Inc — which has 60 nails bars in locations spanning Selfridges to Harvey Nichols — has also experienced a surge in interest on its site throughout the last 12 weeks with an increase in sales of 289 per cent compared with last year. This included a 150 per cent increase in global nail polish sales, while demand for hand and foot masks doubled. Remover products also increased by a whopping 2,000 per cent as quarantined customers sought to take off their salon gel nails at home.

But these impressive figures are not purely about practicality. “In previous recessions we talk of the lipstick effect, but as we plan to cover our faces with masks for the foreseeable future, we have seen a huge movement towards nails as a category,” says Max Leykind, co-founder of ByMe. London, a trailblazing community-created cosmetics brand launched on the peer-to-peer platform MyBeautyBrand, where customers can personalise their own e-store and earn commission from sales. “We have seen an increase of 500 per cent in nail polish sales in just the last month alone with the biggest rise being towards the brighter shades as people seek to be more experimental and inject a little colour into their lives,” Leykind adds.

(Asos)
ASOS

Among the current bestsellers are the Fluoro Pink and bright coral Signal Orange (shop them here) from the brand’s collaboration with legendary manicurist Marian Newman, but he adds that the opaque nude Pink Putty “is not far behind, as this shade is a great base for consumers being more creative and starting to explore nail art”.

With its two popular east London salons shut, Shoreditch Nails has launched a digital academy where novice nail artists can sign up for a course of online workshops, which includes a starter kit. In just one £35 workshop you’ll learn how to master five different techniques from cow print to confetti tips.

My Beauty Brand

Asos has also reported unprecedented recent demand. “The nail category has been consistently seeing huge increases in sales since March due to our customers wanting to treat and colour their nails at home in the absence of salons,” says Katrina Fulluck, Asos Face + Body senior buyer. “Sales have been consistently over 400 per cent growth versus last year, with nail strengthening treatments, at-home gel polishes and on-trend polish colours driving the category.” She adds that false nails have also experienced a spike in popularity with brands such as Shrine among the bestsellers.

But sales are not the only revealing indicator. Fulluck also notes this has had a knock-on effect on social media too. “We have seen more engagement with our nail art content than any other via our Instagram account, where our customers are searching for tips, tricks and inspiration to have some fun with their nails.”

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in