PEPPER PIKE, Ohio — Donna Segulin said becoming a manicurist is a career she’s always wanted to pursue.
“I started by doing my own nails, and I love doing my own nails. And then my friends would ask me to do their nails. And they said, well, ‘You should do this for a living’ and I said, ‘Well, yeah, maybe I should.’ And then I went to school for nails,” she said.
She has worked at the Locksmith Hair Studio in Pepper Pike for almost 20 years, but her career as a manicurist spans 25 years. She said doing nails means everything to her.
“I’ve always considered myself an artist and I always felt the need to create,” she said. “I could not see myself sitting at a desk doing desk work, and I’m also a people-person and I like to talk at my job, and this is one job you don’t get in trouble for talking.”
In the past few years, inflation and the COVID-19 pandemic have brought challenges.
“A lot of the surrounding salons have imposed a COVID charge,” she said. “We decided we didn’t want to do that. That wouldn’t be fair to our clients to do that because everybody’s suffering. So, we didn’t raise our prices, we didn’t impose a COVID charge. You know, we were all in this together.”
Segulin said the salon was then hit with supply chain issues.
“A lot of our supplies we can’t get,” she said. “So, we have to find other resources to get our supplies. And they’ve also been more expensive and it’s been really hard to get the supplies that we’re used to getting, going different routes, but also trying to keep our costs down.”
The Consumer Price Index reports the cost for all items other than food and energy increased 0.6% in December 2021, with personal care increasing 0.5%. Segulin said this concerns her.
“A little stressed out that, you know, everything keeps going up and up and up,” she said. “And just when you think you’re doing really good, prices go up.”
Segulin said the prices of services at the studio ultimately increased.
“We said, ok, ‘We’ll just add a little dollar or two more to the services just so we can recoup,’ you know, and we’re doing everything possible to try and save on costs,” she said.
While a hard decision, she said she remains hopeful for the future.
“I will say that I’m in one of those industries where we can’t be replaced by a machine, so that’s good for us,” she said. “The fashion industry and the beauty industry have always remained pretty strong and I think we will always have a place so I’m hoping that… we won’t get too out of our range.”
For more information on the Locksmith Hair Studio, click here.
