Whether you want to treat yourself after a hard week’s work or you want to look and feel your best for an event, the NYC manicure is one of the easiest, most instantly effective and cheapest, ways to do it.

Unlike many of today’s far-fetched beauty treatments, the manicure is certainly not a recent phenomenon. The word derives from the Latin "manus" meaning hand and "cure" meaning care. Unlike today’s manicures in NYC, the women, and men, of ancient Egypt used alkanna and other natural ingredients to take care of their nails and hands while in India they used henna as nail polish. Long and brightly decorated nails soon became a sign of royalty and a high social status: in China the dowager empress, Cixi, became known for her long, artificial nails while in ancient Egypt plebians were only allowed to have short, lightly colored nails.

Manicures as we now know it were first developed in France, apparently by Louis’ own doctor who had the idea of creating a whole new set of instruments for taking care of nails and fingers (not quite like those in NYC nail salons nowadays!). During the 20th century women became increasingly interested in taking care of their hands and nails and as a result more and more tools and instruments were created to help with this. The first ever nail polish (which was pink) was introduced in 1917 and by the 1920s women all over the world could get nail polishes of any color. However, at the time nail polish could only be bought at pharmacies and were of very poor quality, usually coming off the next day. It was not until the 1930s that the first strength gloss appeared making it possible for nail polish to last longer.

Nail care technologies continued to develop throughout the century (and indeed into the present day). For example the idea of false nails came about in the 1960s when a dentist applied acryl to his wife’s nails to stop her from biting them and the French Manicure started in 1975 when film directors wanted their actresses’ nails to match each wardrobe change.

Technology advances aside, the main purpose of the manicure and other New York nail treatments remains to improve the look and feel of your hands and to clean, strengthen and shape the nails. A good manicure will also prevent hang-nail formation, fragile tips, cuts or splits, it will help in treating sore or broken skin around the nails and the massage while usually accompanies a manicure will boost blood circulation and improve the health of the skin. It’s also a great way to really relax, indulge and de-stress without taking too much time from your busy day and can easily be fitted into a lunch break or between appointments - probably one of the main reasons a New York manicure remains one of NYC’s most popular treatments!? You can learn more about manicure and New York nail treatment and you can get solutions to all of your problems by visiting our website.