Clickety Clack

During the pandemic, women turn to press-on nails for their manicures.

- Jackie Snow

Yewande Moore used to get an acrylic overlay with a gel-polish manicure every couple of weeks before coronavirus hit. But when Ohio, where she lives in Kent, shut down salons, she went to Walmart to get tools to take her nails off, not knowing when she could get them done again.

There, taking a look at the press-on nails in the beauty aisle, Moore, who works with student leaders at a nearby university, had an idea. “I love doing my nails so much,” she said. “I’m going to offer it to other people.”

Moore took her stimulus check and invested in supplies to start a press-on nail business. After painting some sets and building a website, she introduced Nail Candy to the world on June 2 and said she has sold about 125 nail sets. While some customers seem to be pros at putting on press-ons, she gets plenty of questions about how to put them on correctly. “There are a lot of people trying it for the first time who probably never would have tried it before,” she said.

Along with other nonessential businesses, nail salons closed across the United States when the first stay-at-home orders came down in March. It left nail salon workers out of work and people that are used to having their nails done without access to a cherished grooming ritual.