Typical Day
Tiffany Acetone starts her day at 9:00AM when she gets up and goes for a nice jog through the neighborhood with her dog, Frenchie. She likes getting a run in before eating a nice, healthy breakfast.
She touches up Frenchie's polish (cosmic red, Frenchie's favorite), gets dressed, and heads to work at the Shmoopé Nail Salon.
Shmoopé Nails is in a strip mall only fifteen minutes from Tiffany's house. As she pulls into the parking lot, she catches the pungent whiff of chemicals coming from the acrylics. To Tiffany, it smells like home.
Tiffany walks in and says hello to her co-workers: two other women who also have booths in the salon. At Shmoopé Nails, each nail technician is their own boss and has their own station with their own specialty.
Lorna Dunfy, whose station is to the right of Tiffany's, is known for her wild metallic designs on natural nails. Lorna's own nails are a sight to be seen. They are the third longest nails in the world. Most of Lorna's customers have extremely long nails themselves—creepy long. Tiffany doesn't think they look particularly attractive, but, hey, to each their own.
The station to Tiffany's left belongs to Sally Shmolowitz. Sally is the one who does almost all the acrylic nails (although Tiffany does some herself as well). Acrylics need constant touch-ups and new polish, so Sally has plenty of regular clients. It's a good business, but Tiffany prefers natural mid-length nails.
Her strength is in her originality. Tiffany's nail art can be seen all over the place; her already-packed schedule is becoming increasingly busy since she booked her first manicure job for a big fashion magazine spread. Tiffany made more money on that one job than she had in a month at the nail salon.
She got the job through one of her regular clients, whose sixteen-year-old daughter was the model at the magazine. After getting a taste of the good life, Tiffany started work on a book of pictures of her special manicures to show to an agency that might get her more work.
Being her own boss is great…but more money would be better. As it is, she rents out her station and most of her profits go to pay for rent, polishes, and the tools that she has to buy.
Tiffany's first client—Mrs. Taylor—comes in at 11:00AM and wants a mani-pedi. She's a regular client and she always chooses the same thing: bright red for her toenail polish, and a deep, dark blue for her fingernails. This time, just to shake things up, Tiffany offers to do her toenails blue and her fingernails red. Mrs. Taylor thinks about it, but declines, asking Tiffany to do it the way she always has.
Tiffany nods and gives Mrs. Taylor the usual. Blue on the fingers, red on the toes.
The next client to come in is Tiffany's favorite. It's Ms. Loran Lorraine: local celebrity, singer, and the woman whose daughter got Tiffany the job at the magazine.
"They loved the job you did at the magazine. Everyone wanted to know what rock you crawled out from," says Ms. Lorraine, soaking her nails in the softening solution as Tiffany pushed back the cuticles.
Tiffany is pleased by the praise, but resists asking what other nice things were said about her work. "Do you want one of my special nail art designs?" she asks.
"Absolutely, you know me. Go big or go home," says Ms. Lorraine.
Tiffany decides to do a bright, sunny floral motif with vibrant colors and different types of flowers on each nail. When Tiffany's done, Ms. Lorraine looks like she's wearing a bouquet of flowers on her hands. She loves it.
"Don't forget about me when you get all big and famous now," says Ms. Lorraine. She gives Tiffany an extra-generous tip along with her regular fee.
After Ms. Lorraine is gone, Tiffany makes up her mind: She's got to finish putting that book of nail pictures together and contact that agent. It's time to move on. Go big or go home, she thinks, echoing her Ms. Lorraine.
The rest of the afternoon proves to be very busy for Tiffany, as she has six more clients, including two complete mani-pedi's with a full set of acrylics to apply.
She's not ready to leave until 7:30PM that night, after she carefully sterilizes and cleans all her materials and then heads home.
The last thing she wants to do is keep working after such a long day, but that's exactly what she has to do. That portfolio isn't going to create itself.