Shady, Exploitative Practices of New York City Nail Salons Revealed

This morning, The New York Times published a shocking exposé on the horrible conditions in New York City nail salons. Among the lacquer fumes and picky customers, manicurists face racial slurs, physical abuse, and impossibly low wages - if they even get paid at all. Journalist Sarah Maslin Nir interviewed a young Chinese woman named Jing Ren, who revealed that she worked for three months without pay until her boss deemed her skillful enough for a paycheck. Jing would then get paid a mere $30 a day. If you frequent a salon that charges fees so low they seem too good to be true, they probably are: the workers are bearing the cost of your manicure, polish accidents and all.

Qing Lin, 47, a manicurist who has worked on the Upper East Side for the last 10 years, still gets emotional when recounting the time a splash of nail polish remover marred a customer's patent Prada sandals. When the woman demanded compensation, the $270 her boss pressed into the woman's hand came out of the manicurist's pay. Ms. Lin was asked not to return. "I am worth less than a shoe," she said.

These heartbreaking facts may have you wondering how to find a socially conscious nail salon - or do they? How much is your "me time" really worth to you? Is a low-cost manicure/pedicure worth causing your manicurist to live in poverty?

from POPSUGAR Beauty