Nail technicians join forces to raise prices

If you are partial to a manicure, it could be about to cost you more.

Why? More than 5,000 nail technicians across the UK are coming together to collectively raise their prices from Monday in what is being labelled "National Nail Price Increase Day”.

The Nail Tech Org, the company behind the movement, said it decided to make the change after calculating its members were making about £7 per hour, which is below the minimum wage.

Rising costs of utilities and products means nail techs say they are selling themselves short by charging less than their outgoings.

Amy Guy, from Liverpool, who had the idea, told the BBC News Channel that the amount that prices go up would be completely dependent on individual businesses, and not every nail tech would raise them.

She said: “As with any business there are so many costs that are factored into one treatment and it’s such a standard that nail techs have always joined the industry, and just looked at what everybody else is charging, and charged around the same.

“Which doesn’t factor in these costs. It doesn’t fairly pay them and allow them to have a solid income, a profit, and be able to cover all the business costs, along with things like paying into their own pension, and holiday and sick pay that you would be entitled to as an employed person.

“So there’s no right or wrong – you won’t see every nail tech increase their prices, but if you do see nail techs tomorrow onwards increasing their prices it's for the right reason, so they can actually earn a solid income from their hard work."

Ellie Jenkins, 27, has been doing nails for four years and is one of many nail technicians taking part.

“It will vary between £5 and £10 per service," she said. "I’ve tried to keep it as low as I can because of the cost of living crisis.”

Many would say having your nails done definitely falls under the "luxury service" category, which she said she is aware of.

“We don’t want to put our prices up but we want to live again”.

Cost of overheads is one of the main reasons why Ms Jenkins, from Aberdare, Rhondda Cynon Taf, has decided to up her prices.

“No-one really understands the overhead part of a business. I’ve got three to four lights on constantly so my electricity bill is always higher. I pay extra council tax and I don’t pay [into] a pension because I can't afford to.

“I’m looking at myself now thinking I need the money now, my children need the money now, I’m not thinking in however many years down the line."

Ms Jenkins did not realise she was making less than the minimum wage with her current prices.

"I was earning under £8 per hour, which was shocking to think that.

"The fact you're earning under minimum wage makes you quite upset.”

She said she was “nervous but very excited” to be upping her prices.

“It’s really beneficial that we are all raising our prices the same day and you know no-one is going to undercut each other."

Ms Guy, who founded the Nail Tech Org in 2020 after a decade working as a nail artist and educator, said the biggest problem in the industry for a long time was "unfair pricing".

“How do I make that change without feeling like it's me against the world and that my clients are going to go elsewhere,” she said.

Ms Guy wanted to give nail techs the confidence to correctly calculate their prices based on the cost of running their business.

She said she wanted the nail techs “to understand exactly what it needs to be for them to make a profit and run a sustainable business, and if they do need to make changes".

She hoped they would "feel that support around them when doing that and hopefully we will see the change in the industry that I think we really need to see”.

Ms Guy described having nails done as like a “therapy session”.

“That's the magic behind it... you've got that therapy session for two hours and you know you could have that little bit of 'me time', that self-care."

She did a study through her business and said it showed that on average its members were being paid £7 per hour.

"We know that the alternative is that we're not really making a profit and the fact that if we want to continue doing our clients' nails for years to come, it's a change that has to happen.”

Responding to a social media debate that the drive to raise prices in the industry amounted to price fixing - when businesses collude to decide what price to charge for a product - Ms Guy told BBC 5 Live's Wake Up to Money programme on Monday it was more about education.

“There’s no set price that everybody will be amending their prices to," she said.

"I guess this is more an education piece around what are your current business costs and everybody’s will be different depending on whether these people work from home salons, whether they work in salons, mobile.

"So it’s just more around an educational piece of what are your business costs, please check them, please calculate them and then make sure that your prices are at least more than minimum wage because that’s important."

The BBC contacted the Competition and Markets Authority, which responded on Monday saying it was not investigating the issue, but had written an open letter to nail businesses reminding them to comply with competition law.

It said businesses must set their prices independently and that competitors should not discuss or co-ordinate the timing or amount of any price increases.