Quote Originally Posted by Throbert McGee View Post
Totally off the thread topic, but nail salons of this type in the States -- I've heard -- owe much of their popularity to (a) Vietnamese boat-people, and (b) actress Tippi Hedren, best known for Hitchcock's The Birds!

The story goes that Ms. Hedren, at a party in the 1970s, met a couple of Vietnamese-American entrepreneurs (a former South Vietnamese general and his wife!) who owned some hair salons in Los Angeles. At the time, their salons only did very simple manicures. Hedren told them that some Hollywood actresses paid hundreds of dollars for ultra-fancy nails with stripes and rhinestones glued all over them, and that Vietnamese girls who only knew 10 words of English could be taught how to give these "Hollywood style" manicures to middle-class American housewives, bringing in a much bigger profit for the salon.

Tippi's suggestion was a brilliant success, and even now more than half the nail salons in the U.S. are Vietnamese-owned.
All of the local nail salons are owned by Vietnamese immigrants, at least here in Spokane. I used to get my nails done when I was working in TV, but these days I don't bother with it often, and when I do, I apply my own acrylic because it's much less expensive than shelling out up to $50 for a professional manicure.