Why This Rainbow Gel Manicure (With Chrome!) Costs $255

Oct. 9, 2024

Want a manicure that may last up to a month and can be removed in around 15 minutes? Enter soft gel nail extensions. At Vanity Projects, a Lower East Side salon, these nails with this design cost $255.

Soft gel involves covering nails with gel tips and gel adhesive for a new length and shape. Rita Pinto, the salon’s founder, said she routinely buys 35 $30 boxes of 600 tips and a $40 30-milliliter bottle of gel adhesive.

The salon employs up to 30 nail technicians, who take home 40 to 45 percent commission, Ms. Pinto said. Each technician brings their own nail clippers and drills. The salon provides items like disinfectant, which costs $34 per gallon.

While technicians buff and file nails and remove previous work with acetone ($60 for four gallons), a dust collector ($55) collects debris. To help soft gels last, clients harden their nails under a LED lamp ($99).

When deciding on gel polish colors, clients can browse swatch books, which display the range of bottled shades from three gel brands. Each complete color set costs $3,314.

Clients often share photos of what they would like designed on their nails. Décor options include a hazy finish using an airbrush compression machine ($474), rhinestones ($10 for 40 pieces) and chrome paint ($25 for a one-gram bottle).

Ms. Pinto said the business spends about $16,000 monthly to lease the salon, which underwent an expansion and renovation in 2021, costing at least $100,000.

Why This Rainbow Gel Manicure (With Chrome!) Costs $255

For Ms. Pinto, who worked in art curation, nails are just another form of art.

She made the switch in 2008 as the recession hit, beginning Vanity Projects as a pop-up at art events. “I said, ‘OK, well, it’s better that everybody spends a little bit of money, even if it’s a small amount,’” she said.

Six years later, the business had grown enough to open the salon. With a clientele including Whoopi Goldberg and Sasha Obama, the salon expanded to include a second floor, an international artist-in-residence program and a second location, which opened in Miami in 2015.

Pricing for soft gels — which typically can be soaked off in acetone, unlike hard gels, which must be filed off — depends on the length, size and brand, as well as any nail art. In New York City, where there are many independent nail technicians, soft gels can start between $100 and $400; Vanity Projects begins at $155.

Ms. Pinto said a partnership for the last five years with the brand Aprés, which created a soft gel extension process known as Gel-X, has allowed her to offer monthly specials of $100 for the brand’s soft gels, to try to attract more customers. She declined to put a figure to the discount; an Aprés representative did not respond to requests for comment.

Nail art and designs — like chrome pigments, illustrations, rhinestones, charms or airbrush finishes — can run up a customer’s bill, too. Depending on what a client requests, Vanity Projects sets pricing tiers for nail design as simple ($10 extra), middle ($50 extra) or complex ($90 extra). Typical appointments from start to finish can run about 75 minutes to two and a half hours.