The Ed.
Well-Known Member
CND Education Ambassador, Anna Lee, is turning the tide in our opinion of South East Asian salons and technicians and CND are supporting her the whole way. I went to find out what she's doing, how it's working and why one of the biggest nail companies around is putting aside all prejudice and reaching out to this community.
It's fair to say that the South East Asian (SEA) nail community hasn't had a great reputation. For years, they've been excluded from the nail community with simple throw away phrases such as 'non-standard salon' and, offensively, 'chop shops'. The assumption has been that every SEA salon and nail technician is all about making money by using low grade products, not paying for education and getting through as many customers, as quickly as possible and who cares whether they're damaging the nail?
Apart from the fact that such an opinion is coloured by huge generalisations and ignorance, it's simply not true and Anna Lee is working her socks off to make sure that it becomes less and less true. It was after meeting Gigi Rouse right here on Salon Geek, that the idea came into existence. Gigi spotted the potential of Anna and how CND could work with her to access this community. "This is Gigi's idea," explains Anna. "I'll always give her credit for that. But she believed that this could work. It had worked in the USA, and Gigi believed it could work here."
But there was a lot of resistance. People were (and still are) quick, too quick, to judge this community. "Of course, there are those SEA salons that exist that aren't following good practice," admits Anna, "but I have friends who own SEA salons and they're not like that at all." And, let's be honest, non-standard, non-SEA salons exist as well. That aside, it's Anna's mission to find those salons that are working below standard and offer them access to education - access that they've previously not had.
You may wonder what's stopped this community from picking themselves up (for want of a better phrase) and calling companies like CND themselves in an attempt to actively seek out better products and better education. Anna's response is 'Why would they?' "The rest of the industry hates them. The big companies hate them. Nobody wants to help them because they don't want to touch them with a bargepole, or have them anywhere near their products. So, why then, would they come to us to ask for help or education if they know how you feel about them?"
It's a good point and one that many people aren't willing to see. Many in the industry are quick to lay the blame entirely at the feet of the SEA community who they see as insulated, isloated and disinterested. Anna says that this simply isn't true. "It just needed a familiar face to enter their world and open the door for them...No one was there to guide and support them before CND and myself decided to take this on and the irony is, this community offers some of the most skilled male and female nail technicians I've seen."
It wasn't an easy start. It's too simplistic to simply say that Anna was successful simply because she was Chinese (although that helped). "I went into salons with catalogues and was ignored. They thought I was a sales rep. It just didn't work." After working on the project quietly for nine months with the help of Ketal Patel, they decided that they only way to get the community on board was to get their trust. They need to see Anna as a serious figure in the nail industry, so after much discussion they decided to raise the profile of the project and Anna.
"As time went on, I realised that I needed it to be high profile. I needed my name to be out there. I needed them to know that I work for CND, that I'm not a sales rep, that I'm an Education Ambassador." That was important. "Education Ambassadors are teachers and, in our culture, teachers are highly respected, so I needed them to know what and who I was."
They went to Scratch magazine, CND promoted her and her work at trade shows and sure enough, little by little, the community started to take notice. "They started to say, 'There's a girl in CND; she's Chinese and she can help us." And help them she did.
Anna offered classes tailored to the SEA community and they took off. Soon the word was out and the phone kept ringing. SEA nail technicians started returning to take more and more classes and before she knew it she had her first SEA Master Painter but, that wasn't enough. Anna knew that these men and women were damn good at what they were doing, but she wanted the rest of us to know too.
Ana put together the first-ever SEA team representing the UK and entered them into the Nailympics. Yes, it would be nice if they did well but that wasn't the only reason why it was important. "I told them, 'This competition that you're going into is not just for you. What you're doing is this: you're the first ever team of SEA technicians representing the UK and you're doing it for every other SEA nail technician out there." In actual fact, one of Team SEA placed third and the other three all placed in the top ten. Not bad for a team of nail techs that everyone reckons work below standard.
It's clear how passionate Anna is about her work with this community. Tears well up in her eyes when she describes how her student who landed third place cried when she found out she'd won. This is a big deal to Anna. "It frustrates me that people talk about other people from my culture, people just like me, when they don't have a chance to defend themselves." And if you think that this prejudice is overblown then you're wrong. Even Anna herself, CND Education Ambassador and regular contributor to Scratch magazine, has seen the visible disappointment in some clients eyes when they turn up at her house for the first time for a treatment and they realise she Chinese.
The simple fact is that this community didn't have access, or didn't believe they had access, to this kind of product or this kind of education until now. Anna stresses that the bottom line is education and if she can get this community to trust her and CND, then it's likely we can empower a whole new community of top-grade nail technicians and that's exactly what she wants to do.
"I'm looking for a bigger team for this year's Nailympics. I want to put them into different categories including Gel and L&P. I want people to see Team SEA and know that they are a force to be reckoned with. I want them to make their own stamp in the industry and say, 'We're no longer rubbish. We can compete along side you and we can win."
Whether they win their competition or not, one thing is clear. Anna and CND are winning. They are beating this division in the nail industry and as we all strive to raise the reputation of our industry, and regulate it properly, this can only be a good thing. A really good thing.
Until then...geek on!
The Ed.
It's fair to say that the South East Asian (SEA) nail community hasn't had a great reputation. For years, they've been excluded from the nail community with simple throw away phrases such as 'non-standard salon' and, offensively, 'chop shops'. The assumption has been that every SEA salon and nail technician is all about making money by using low grade products, not paying for education and getting through as many customers, as quickly as possible and who cares whether they're damaging the nail?
Apart from the fact that such an opinion is coloured by huge generalisations and ignorance, it's simply not true and Anna Lee is working her socks off to make sure that it becomes less and less true. It was after meeting Gigi Rouse right here on Salon Geek, that the idea came into existence. Gigi spotted the potential of Anna and how CND could work with her to access this community. "This is Gigi's idea," explains Anna. "I'll always give her credit for that. But she believed that this could work. It had worked in the USA, and Gigi believed it could work here."
But there was a lot of resistance. People were (and still are) quick, too quick, to judge this community. "Of course, there are those SEA salons that exist that aren't following good practice," admits Anna, "but I have friends who own SEA salons and they're not like that at all." And, let's be honest, non-standard, non-SEA salons exist as well. That aside, it's Anna's mission to find those salons that are working below standard and offer them access to education - access that they've previously not had.
You may wonder what's stopped this community from picking themselves up (for want of a better phrase) and calling companies like CND themselves in an attempt to actively seek out better products and better education. Anna's response is 'Why would they?' "The rest of the industry hates them. The big companies hate them. Nobody wants to help them because they don't want to touch them with a bargepole, or have them anywhere near their products. So, why then, would they come to us to ask for help or education if they know how you feel about them?"
It's a good point and one that many people aren't willing to see. Many in the industry are quick to lay the blame entirely at the feet of the SEA community who they see as insulated, isloated and disinterested. Anna says that this simply isn't true. "It just needed a familiar face to enter their world and open the door for them...No one was there to guide and support them before CND and myself decided to take this on and the irony is, this community offers some of the most skilled male and female nail technicians I've seen."
It wasn't an easy start. It's too simplistic to simply say that Anna was successful simply because she was Chinese (although that helped). "I went into salons with catalogues and was ignored. They thought I was a sales rep. It just didn't work." After working on the project quietly for nine months with the help of Ketal Patel, they decided that they only way to get the community on board was to get their trust. They need to see Anna as a serious figure in the nail industry, so after much discussion they decided to raise the profile of the project and Anna.
"As time went on, I realised that I needed it to be high profile. I needed my name to be out there. I needed them to know that I work for CND, that I'm not a sales rep, that I'm an Education Ambassador." That was important. "Education Ambassadors are teachers and, in our culture, teachers are highly respected, so I needed them to know what and who I was."
They went to Scratch magazine, CND promoted her and her work at trade shows and sure enough, little by little, the community started to take notice. "They started to say, 'There's a girl in CND; she's Chinese and she can help us." And help them she did.
Anna offered classes tailored to the SEA community and they took off. Soon the word was out and the phone kept ringing. SEA nail technicians started returning to take more and more classes and before she knew it she had her first SEA Master Painter but, that wasn't enough. Anna knew that these men and women were damn good at what they were doing, but she wanted the rest of us to know too.
Ana put together the first-ever SEA team representing the UK and entered them into the Nailympics. Yes, it would be nice if they did well but that wasn't the only reason why it was important. "I told them, 'This competition that you're going into is not just for you. What you're doing is this: you're the first ever team of SEA technicians representing the UK and you're doing it for every other SEA nail technician out there." In actual fact, one of Team SEA placed third and the other three all placed in the top ten. Not bad for a team of nail techs that everyone reckons work below standard.
It's clear how passionate Anna is about her work with this community. Tears well up in her eyes when she describes how her student who landed third place cried when she found out she'd won. This is a big deal to Anna. "It frustrates me that people talk about other people from my culture, people just like me, when they don't have a chance to defend themselves." And if you think that this prejudice is overblown then you're wrong. Even Anna herself, CND Education Ambassador and regular contributor to Scratch magazine, has seen the visible disappointment in some clients eyes when they turn up at her house for the first time for a treatment and they realise she Chinese.
The simple fact is that this community didn't have access, or didn't believe they had access, to this kind of product or this kind of education until now. Anna stresses that the bottom line is education and if she can get this community to trust her and CND, then it's likely we can empower a whole new community of top-grade nail technicians and that's exactly what she wants to do.
"I'm looking for a bigger team for this year's Nailympics. I want to put them into different categories including Gel and L&P. I want people to see Team SEA and know that they are a force to be reckoned with. I want them to make their own stamp in the industry and say, 'We're no longer rubbish. We can compete along side you and we can win."
Whether they win their competition or not, one thing is clear. Anna and CND are winning. They are beating this division in the nail industry and as we all strive to raise the reputation of our industry, and regulate it properly, this can only be a good thing. A really good thing.
Until then...geek on!
The Ed.
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