Meow

Apparently it's been far too long since I was in a good fight. Not a hair-pulling, eye-gouging fist fight — I almost never win those. But a good old-fashioned voice-raised, ranting, gesticulating-wildly soap-box brawl.

Today I yelled at a woman on the street downstairs from the salon. Just full-on-so-everyone-could-hear yelled at her! Well. She came out of the bank downstairs reading one of their brochures and then casually tossed it on the sidewalk.

Wow. Now that's class. So I told her so. Of course, she looked at me and ran away.

Wuss.

And then there was yesterday at Maly's.

I don't shop at Maly's. Typically they don’t have anything I need. But yesterday I was looking for something in particular that I figured they really should have had in stock. Never mind that they not only did not have it in stock, but two employees and the manager of the store had never even heard of gel polish. So my trip was futile in the way that some trips make you feel that all trips are ultimately futile.

Mostly, I had to take my license to Maly's because I didn't have a card. Which is how Maly's California corporate headquarters got an e-mail from me today. And the Nailtech mailing list at Beautytech got a HECKUVA post yesterday.

Short version? I'm a manicurist. Manicurists are limited to $50 in "non-related" purchases for personal use — but no hair color. Because I'm not qualified to jack up my own hair with professional products lest I blame the store for selling it to me.

So, just to play devil's advocate, I asked what they would have done had I brought my establishment license instead of my manicurist license. They said that since I'm a "nail salon" I would still have had my purchases limited.

Except wait a minute. California doesn't differentiate between nail salons and hair salons. If you have an establishment license, you can decide what services you want — or don't want — to offer in your salon.

So, are hair-only salons still allowed to buy nail products? I'm not talking about licensed cosmetologists, I'm talking about salon owners who shop for their salons by bringing their establishment licenses to the store. Tit for tat, guys.

Oh yeah, and are all employees required to have cosmetology licenses? And if not, are employees allowed to purchase products from the store? Do they get a discount off of what we — as professionals — pay?

I'm not sure that's OK with me.

And when does the nail industry get it's own Bravo competition show? The BF is utterly convinced that my current argumentative mood is based entirely on this season of “Shear Genius.” GO BRIG!