Pick a Color, Pick a Stick

“I used to paint my own nails up to four or five different colors so the client could decide on the polish shade she wanted,” says Angie Wingerter, a nail tech at Pizazz in Festus, Mo. “I would hold my nail up to hers so she could see what it looked like next to her skin tone.” But a few months ago, she and coworker Barb Vonder Haar started something new and it’s working out great. “We hot glued polished nail tips to sticks, included labels for each color that we offer, and put the sticks in a bucket filled with sand,” she says. “It looks really cute — like a flower basket.” Now they just pull the stick out and hold it over the client’s nail. “The clients are having a lot of fun with it,” she notes. It’s also easy if a color is discontinued. “We just throw the stick away and if we get new colors we make more.” All the polish bottles are displayed on the wall in alphabetical order and labeled so they are easy to find. “They are staying in place so much better now that Barb and I are the only ones who need to touch the bottles,” says Wingerter.