Fish Stories

Nails by Janae Felkins, New Waves Salon (Lancaster, Calif.)

It has long been my stance that Visalia runs nearly 10 years behind the times when it comes to the nail industry. Seriously. I can't tell you how long I was the only one I knew of who did pink-and-whites, then I was one of two techs who did gels, then I was the only one mixing glitter into my acrylic ... for a while. Then someone else started mixing glitter into acrylic, but she came up with a WAY cool name for the look and suddenly everyone was mixing glitter — and all kinds of bling — into their acrylic and calling it "rock star" and that left me and about 50 of my clients sitting around saying "but that's not new!"

Don't matter anyway. Rock star nails put Tulare County on the nail map of the world and finally, a fashion trend can credit its beginnings to my little backwards corner of the world.

It's probably just a fluke, seeing as how it seems like there's still no convincing the average client that stilettos are cool or that Minx is what's hot now. And while the rest of the industry tries to wrap its mind around why anyone would want "duck feet" flared nails, my younger clients are just starting to ask for "cut out" tips.

"Cut out?" Is that what I'm calling them? I used to refer to this shape — the uber-square free edge that actually U's in so the corners are pointed — as the "California square." It was popular about 12-15 years ago, especially with my clients who liked the edges to stay squared and sharp. So we'd file into the edge so that the corners had farther to go before getting worn down. Now that look has found new life, with a more extreme cut.

I really think "fish tail" or "whale tail" is a good description of it and might be what I decided to dub it — but the other day I had a client come in and tell me that her sister-in-law has a "hooker's hook."

???!

So I explain to my dear client that she's going to have to describe this "hooker's hook" to me because these are not official terms; these are things that different salons come up with to market their services. So just WTF is a "hooker's hook" and why would anyone — other than perhaps an actual hooker — want one?

She proceeded to describe the extreme cut out tip. And now I fear that this is exactly what it will end up being known as throughout the world because I am so amused at the notion that anyone thinks this is an appropriate term that I keep telling EVERYONE about it! Seriously. It's not even a HOOK!

Best yet though, was the BF's reaction — the BF who has sat through more episodes of Tabitha's Salon Takeover with me than he'd care to admit to — who said, "and that's the same nail tech who's sitting at her desk wondering why she can't get a more upscale clientele to come to her."

I thinks it's a "fish tail tip."