Hello and welcome to this edition of Salon Stopover.
I'm really delighted today to be going over to Seoul in South Korea where I'm going to be talking to two fantastic people who are utterly immersed in the nail industry and are going to give us a fabulous insight into the nail culture over in South Korea and particularly in Seoul.
So today I'm speaking to Seeun Park, who is the editor of Nailholic magazine and also the director of NailPro Asia, and Hemi Park, who is based in the USA, but travels at least four times a year over to South Korea, where she coordinates NailPro Asia.
So, I want to welcome them today.
Hi guys.
Thank you for joining me.
Hi, thank you for having us.
I'm excited to talk about the style of the South Korean salon.
So I've noted, we're going to look at some salons in a moment, but I've noted some common themes that seem to be throughout.
So I've noted that the salons I've looked at, are looking at white walls, cream or white walls and light wood for your storage and your shelves, with lovely accents of plants around to give that pop of color.
And I'm seeing what I've noted is it's quite minimalist.
minimalist salons, very easy to clean, which is obviously incredibly important, and then lots of glass.
interior glass as well.
And when I look at that as a whole, what I'm feeling is that it's about light.
It's about bringing in as much light as possible and I guess for a salon that's in a mall, that's actually very important.
But I think the thing I noticed the most, that I really, really loved and I'd love you to tell me more about, is that I'm used to seeing maybe 1 or 2 gel polishes, maybe 3 at a stretch.
Brands I'm talking about when you walk into a salon.
when I'm looking at these salons, I'm looking at a huge gigantic wall of color.
Absolutely beautiful.
It's the center piece of every salon I've seen and I'm seeing 5, 5 if not more brands of gel polish.
So please can you tell us what that's about?
Why so many brands can be found in one salon?
So, to give you a little insight of the Korean professional nail brands, there are maybe 40 to 50 professional nail brands that are made and manufactured in Korea and to add up the different retail brands, there are maybe over 100 nail brands that exist in Korea.
So a lot of clients prefer the Korean products over the international brands, the well-known brands because of their quality and the Korean products are made under strict guidelines.
So the Korean FDA controls the ingredients.
The substances and ingredients that can be harmful to clients or that cause allergic reaction to clients potentially.
So the brands that are made and manufactured in Korea are highly trusted by clients and they do request specific colors, specific brands, as well as specific designs.
So the clients are doing their part, doing their homework.
So they research, they they come on to the salon and they get recommendations, but they know what they want when they walk into the salon.
So that's how it goes.
And that's why the part of the colors and different bottles and packages are part of the salon interior.
Goodness, that's a really savvy clientele you've got per se.
That's astonishing, but I have to say I mean, it's incredibly beautiful to see these walls of color and I love the way that they're put in color palettes.
So you almost get ombrés across and then also the bottles themselves are absolutely beautiful.
So it is a wall of stunning color and shape and structure and another thing I've noticed, I suppose this ties in then with your savvy clientele, is I'm used to seeing nail art designs in an area of a salon where you've got a nice selection that can give you an idea, either give you the design you want to see, or give you an idea but the salons that we're going to look at in a moment, they've got a wealth of nail art, nail art tips absolutely massive oceans of them.
The walls of nail art .so the specific salon culture in Korea is called the Nail Art of the Month.
So every salon and every nail technician or licensed professional prepares the design of the month and they usually use that as a menu, so they have a fixed price.
So if you learn something specific from a class, like a certain technique, let's say marble, then you want to use it or you go buy a new color.
Then you can use that towards the Art of the Month and the clients will choose those with the discounted price.
I would say, so that's a type of salon promotion or the marketing here in Korea.
So, a lot of nail salon owners will post their Art of the Month on their Instagram or social media.
So the clients can see what they can get and you can also bring your own nail art ideas and the nail technician can do that for you.
That all depends on what your salon is going for, like what kind of design, what kind of vibe you have and the clients know that you can do certain type or you do certain types of nail art or you have certain different vibes as well.
So clients do, like I said, they do their homework researching and all that and that's easily doable by just looking at their social media, because it's obvious they have a certain color that they do, a certain design that they do or certain length or a certain type application they do.
So, every salon is unique and every salon has their own unique vibe and design.
So would you say, as an interesting point to make here, are salons quite competitive within their community?
If you're going to go to all this trouble to have all this beautiful art out and have your nail trends of the month.
Are you trying to outwit or out art the local salon down the road?
I would say so, I mean everybody's competitive here as well.
So, but really if you're getting long nails, you like to get extensions and the salon that you you used to go to doesn't do that.
Then you're going to go look for those salons that specifically do the extensions and the arts that are made for the extended nails.
So every salon has a little bit of different uniqueness to it and unique style of doing their service.
And the clients already know when they walk in.
So, there's a salon recipe, but the ingredients change.
Yes.
Okay.
So now we've got a good handle on all of this.
I think we should look at the salons that Seeun has unearthed for us here.
So I think if we start with looking at Bandi.
So Bandi is.
did you know, it's a nail brand?
I didn't know .thank you.
So no, I wasn't aware.
Thank you.
Tell me more?
Bandi is one of the largest professional nail brand and manufacturer in Korea and their salon is called Bandin house.
And that's what we're looking at and they have a specific concept throughout their store.
So this is called the flagship store.
A couple of the shops are owned by and operated by Bandi and then they franchised out to some professionals, so there are different branches.
a total of 15 branches.
and growing.
What's unique about these stores or the Bandin House salon, is that they exclusively use Bandi products to service their clients and the clients can purchase the at homecare products that are from Bandy in House.
So they will shop and get services done in one area and then the entire branches, all the branches, have the same concept, which is eco-friendly concept.
Oh brilliant, so it's 15 different branches and expanding.
And so when we're looking at that massive wall of gel polishes, every single one of those comes under the Bandi umbrella?
Yes.
Wow, that's a huge range they have.
And they have a few different homecare products as well, like the lotions and pedicure products and scrub, oils.
their scented amazing.
There are scented beautifully and you can purchase the newest product from a salon itself.
So the client doesn't have to go and look for those because each salon will have the brand new products.
Wow, well, we started with a really fascinating one.
That's amazing.
Well, let's move now to go and look at Maximum Nails.
This is a typical, large-scale nail salon, privately owned.
Many nail technicians work there.
so you can serve multiple clients at a time .at once.
The salon owner actually wanted to accentuate their use of lighting, in their interior, because as you can see, it's very warm.
And the use of light is very clever as you can see, it's huge, enormous scale of a salon.
You can can probably see from the picture.
There is a glass room.
That is a classroom.
So the owner of this particular salon trains the other salon owners or one wanting to be a salon owner.
So she hosts a training class where she teaches either technique or everything about opening a salon and operating salons as well.
Okay, brilliant.
This is a really great insight we're having here.
Well, I want to move on now then, to I believe Haze On.
I don't know.
Is it run by Chang JeeSook?
Yes, so JeeSook is a one of our judges for Nail Pro Asia, but she was also a competitor in the United States.
So she has won a couple of medals from the USA when the Nail Pro competition in the USA was huge and she was a teacher, so she trained a lot of nail professionals at the private institution.
And now she owns her her own smaller salon.
This is a rather private size salon.
You know what I found interesting about this one particularly, because this stood out for me a little bit, because I felt it had a little bit of a US 50's style.
It felt a bit 50's style to me.
When you look at the corrugated elements on the reception desk and then you see the color that she's chosen for the actual façade outside.
That's almost that 50's green.
And I love the texture on the lamp shade and for me, I felt there was a hint of another culture coming in there, so that ties in and I obviously spotted well there.
Actually JeeSook dresses very feminine, and she actually fits right in this salon, like her personality and how she dresses and you know, actually goes with the entire salon.
So when I first visited there, because I went there to get some services done and she did as well, I was like, oh this just fits her, like she fits right in and this is her other self.
That's what I thought.
And then another remarkable thing for you to see is, even the tiniest salon like this, Haze on Salon.
They have over 10 different brands on their shelf.
So in fact she probably has more.
That's typical.
Yeah typical stock.
Of the amount of different brands and that's because of demands from the clientele.
Wow.
It's incredible.
It's such a great Insight.
I'm really enjoying the journey, and I'm learning so much about nail culture in Korea.
It's amazing.
So if we go to the last salon that you found for me Seeun.
I think it's called for Forsy Nail, but I'm confused because it says Forsythe.
So talk me through Forsy Nail?
So in Korea, in Korean in our pronunciation, it's actually called Pochi nail.
This is the insight, so as you read, it's reading Forsy.
However, because of it's pronunciation the owner of this salon particular franchise is trying to change the English spelling.
That's in the process at the moment.
So this is a small Insight.
What Andrea said, the Forsy is probably from a Christian Bible, because the owner of the salon is Christian.
The franchise.
Forsy Nails has over 75 branches In Korea.
75?
Yes.
So this is a franchise.enormous.
and they have a membership type of pricing so.
.it's kind of like a gym where you pay a certain amount and then you get discounted services.
.yearly or something like that.
So they run their salon and because this is a franchise they have memberships as well that are available to purchase and you get a certain percentage of discount.
The corporation who owns this franchise imports products from overseas like the spa products and like Barielle, I believe that's a UK brand.
And some American brands as well.
So they bring some good products from overseas and they use it within their salons in all branches.
So they do import and use on client and sales as well, just like Bandi but in a different manner.
They use mostly Korean gel colors within their salon because of the demand.
75 salons is an enormous amount.
and growing.
Wow.
And.
they're all enormous sizes.
So they're in major malls in Korea.
Like the mega-sized malls, like a huge shopping mall.
I've seen a few actually when I went to some different malls with my family.
They have adopted the sanitation process from the United States.
They had the slogan called 'Clean & Healthy'.
So they've been using disposable products only on their clients and really trying to advocate how clean they are and how important sanitation is, Yeah, we could see that they had the packet coming out that looks like the tools implements have been autoclaved and then put into a vacuumed-pack bag, which is sensational.
That's exactly what a client wants to see.
Fantastic.
I'm actually really intrigued about how you would have a salon membership.
Can you tell us just a bit more about?
So she thought those membership services are available in other countries.
No?
I just pointed out that's all, and she's just like.
'what it's not available anywhere else?' So this is one unique thing.
Okay, I got it.
So the memberships are a type of gift card, so there are different levels of gift memberships that are deferred by the amount and let's say you purchase a $1000 Membership.
Let's say that, then you're like a VIP, so you get different perks.
So you get different discount amounts, you get different services, you get a little more services or different product, like premium care type of thing.
And then you can also purchase products at a discounted rate.
And you also receive gifts from salons.
These membership type promotions are for the salons to build their clientele.
So you deposit it, let's say, you know $50 at this salon, you want to use the $50, so that you're money doesn't go away, so they have to come back and get more services.
So they do it in larger quantities in some of the salons.
Smaller salons to the same as well, and the profit sharing process within this big franchise and the nail technician who works in there.
is that you get commission.
Brilliant, I like this idea.
We're used to the idea that you may have a card and every time you have a manicure you do 6 manicures and then you're 7th will be free to say 'thank you'.
You know, we call that a loyalty card.
And that idea works very well.
But the idea that you would buy, you know, a gold, silver, bronze membership and it would give you different discounts across products and give you gifts and give you luxurious treatments.
I think this is a real winner of a business idea.
Thank you very much for sharing.
Okay so they want your loyalty ahead.
So they don't want you to come back 7 times and hoping that you'll come come back like 6 times.
Yeah.
They guarantee that you're going to come back.
You're gonna come 6 times and get yourself.
because you're paying for the 6 times.
Okay.
Well, we've had an incredible journey through finding out how the nail culture across Korea is working.
How savvy the clients are and how the actual structure and set up of salons is done and with some hot business tips too.
This has been an absolutely brilliant journey, and I've learned so much guys, so I want to thank you very much for joining me today on Salon Stopover and sharing all your nail wisdom with me.
Thank you so much.
Andrea just said that she would love to invite you, at some point, so that we can do this type of thing, so we can also exchange our insight from UK or overseas to Korea and it was my pleasure to be in this meeting as well as translating and being able to learn more about Korean nail salon culture because I'm really in California, so I don't really know much about Korean nail culture.
So it was a learning curve for me as well.
Brilliant.
So we've all had a very nutritious nail experience together.
Thank you very much.
And I really look forward to the next time we talk and I accept your invitation.
Thank you.