Lori Halloway invented her Ergo Lift to help nail techs sit in the correct position. 
 -

Lori Halloway invented her Ergo Lift to help nail techs sit in the correct position.

Lori Halloway (@themeticulousmanicurist) invented her new product, the Ergo Lift, to help prevent repetitive use injuries in nail techs. These injuries are some of the most common causes of nail tech burnout, and Halloway has personal experience with the toll they can take. “I was lucky to recover from a cervical spinal surgery and was adamant about maintaining my salon and clientele even after my neurologist urged against me staying in the nail business,” explains Halloway. “I fought through injuries like carpal tunnel and cubital tunnel early in my career. If I had had a hand rest to help prevent even those, I believe I would never have ended up having to have a neck fusion.”

When Halloway designed the hand rest, her goals were to prevent clients from pressing the weight of their body on her and to help with her own body posture. Patenting the product was a long process. “It took two years, four phases of prototypes, a product development company, a patent attorney, a mold manufacturing company, patience, and lots of money,” says Halloway. “Most people would have been discouraged by the entire stressful process, but I had a mission. I didn’t want other nail technicians to suffer the same injuries my career had imposed on me.” The value in the hand rest was immediately clear to other techs: When Halloway introduced her product at the Nail Tech Event of the Smokies trade show in June, she sold out in one hour.

Halloway's invention allows nail techs to keep good posture. 
 -

Halloway's invention allows nail techs to keep good posture.

Halloway says the hand rest helps the nail tech in several ways:

1. It keeps the forearm, wrist, and hand of the client in perfect alignment to the center of the nail technician’s body, preventing ulnar and radial deviation. That’s the flexion in the wrist when the client tries to point her fingers toward the nail tech. The flexion causes stiff fingers you can’t see, causing the tech to lean forward with her head in an unnatural position.

2. It lifts the hand, allowing the fingers to hang over the palm rest. This allows the nail tech sit with their head over her shoulders in the proper body posture.

3. It removes all the weight of the client from the nail technician. A client can’t impose strain on the wrist, arm, shoulder, back, or neck of the nail tech.

Halloway’s website, www.theergolift.com, features videos demonstrating how the product corrects client hand positions, improves service times, increases productivity, and provides client benefits.

Learn more about ergonomics for nail techs.

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, Click here.