The Hidden Cost of Your Manicure Includes Exploitation and Abuse

Last week, The New York Times published a shocking exposé on the horrible conditions in New York City nail salons. Among the lacquer fumes and picky customers, manicurists face racial slurs, physical abuse, and impossibly low wages — if they even get paid at all. Journalist Sarah Maslin Nir interviewed a young Chinese woman named Jing Ren, who revealed that she worked for three months without pay until her boss deemed her skillful enough for a paycheck. Jing would then get paid a mere $30 a day. If you frequent a salon that charges fees so low they seem too good to be true, they probably are: the workers are bearing the cost of your manicure, polish accidents and all.

Qing Lin, 47, a manicurist who has worked on the Upper East Side for the last 10 years, still gets emotional when recounting the time a splash of nail polish remover marred a customer's patent Prada sandals. When the woman demanded compensation, the $270 her boss pressed into the woman's hand came out of the manicurist's pay. Ms. Lin was asked not to return. "I am worth less than a shoe," she said.

The New York Times also reported that many manicurists suffer from diseases like sarcoidosis, have children with birth defects, or miscarry because of the toxic chemicals they work with on a daily basis. These heartbreaking facts may have you wondering how to find a socially conscious nail salon — or do they? How much is your "me time" really worth to you? Is a low-cost manicure/pedicure worth causing your manicurist to live in poverty with poor health? New York State government says no and is cracking down on sketchy salons.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has created an emergency task force that will investigate salons, enforce rules to protect manicurists from harmful fumes, and inform workers of their rights. According to The New York Times, salons that are unlicensed or fail to pay workers back wages will be shut down.