It claims there are 35,000 manicurists, a number it projects will grow to 55,000 by 2005. It is also a licensed occupation in all but a few states, and the licensing boards track active nail techs, which is where that 239,000 figure comes from. The BLS head counters have misplaced an awesome number of jobs. If they can be that wrong about licensed manicurists, imagine what they can do with gardeners, car washers, or nonunion construction workers. Second, serendipity and synthesis drive economic development, making new industries hard to predict.
Artificial nails account for two-thirds of salon revenue.
Modern acrylics were invented not by a cosmetics company but by a dentist with a knack for chemistry. Catching a familiar smell as Dr. Stuart Nordstrom made her a temporary crown, a patient griped about the similar compounds she used as a manicurist to fashion fingernails. An inventive fellow, Nordstrom fooled around in his garage lab and came up with better compounds, founding Creative Nail Design Systems in 1978. Its products and training courses, along with other innovators' improved glues and plastic nail tips, helped propel the industry's growth. Better acrylics were necessary to build the nail business, but they were not sufficient to make it explode.