What do piña coladas, cherry pie and fierce nails have in common? Well NAF! Salon of course, it’s only the hottest salon in Glasgow bringing some serious style to your nails and face. We caught up with owner and nail boss, Tammy Koslowski to find out what it takes to be in the UK’s coolest nail gang
Where did you get the idea for NAF! Salon?
I had previously been running my own business called DIY Nails. I made and sold nail art decals. I saw all these cool nail bars in London, like WAH Nails, as I was running DIY Nails and doing people’s nails on the side I thought it would be really cool for somewhere like that to open in Glasgow.
There were all these individual nail artists doing people’s nails and I thought why is it just one person doing this? There should be somewhere you can go and get nail art from anyone. Instead of these Topshop nail bars where you’re in and out it would be nice for someone to do it for everyone and it just never happened. I thought well I know how to run a business because I have done so I’m just going to go for it.
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What is it like owning your own business?
It’s definitely a journey, it is good but you have to be the right type of person to run your own business. You have to be the first person in the door and the last person out. You have to make massive sacrifices; especially if you’re employing people to make sure they’re happy and supported. You have to be very driven and passionate about what you’re doing.
From owning my own business because I wanted to be my own boss to now, where I have to think about what I do and how it impacts so many people. It’s amazing, I do love it but it is really daunting. It all depends on the type of business you want to run. I didn’t really think it would get this big, I wanted it to, but I didn’t think it would get this big as quickly.
What is a typical day in the salon?
The salon opens at ten so we get in at 09:30, so that’s management and front of house. We go through our emails and make sure everyone who is in for the day has confirmed and if people have cancelled we go through the right procedures.
We make sure the girls are in for a start, if someone is off sick – we don’t like to cancel clients – we have a huge task of fitting people into different areas, contacting a whole host of people to see if they can reduce what they’re getting or move to another date, or if they’re okay with changing staff.
When the girls start filtering in we make sure they’re comfortable with their schedule and then we will have a chat about what happened the previous day and what is happening for the rest of the week. Then we take the day as it comes, we’re quite strict with timing so we monitor everyone’s timings everyday.
All the girls are supported throughout the day. At the weekend we usually have hen parties in and that takes a lot of planning before. We also do events, sometimes we can be in shops doing pop up nail bars and that takes a lot of planning. We also do a lot of social media throughout the day.
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NAF! Nail art is so famous now – do you have to go on training courses to ace it?
We do it all in house. We have a training morning every Friday where we bring pictures or discuss things we’ve seen that are trending at the moment. Some people will pair off or we’ll go over luxury manicures or detailed nail art. We just teach other.
In the past I showed the girls how to do things but now most of the girls are so confident I let them show new starts or people who aren’t as comfortable. I wouldn’t advice going on a nail art course, what you learn on the courses can be so limiting in just an hour or two hours. If you wanted to expand I would just watch YouTube videos. I think we will do a nail art course but it will be very broad like how to use brushes and the tools to do the nail art.
Do you need to have certain qualifications to be part of the NAF! team?
From nail technicians we need manicure, pedicure, and gel polish. We do prefer people to have done an acrylic course – either a HNC HND beauty or nail course or even a day course. We also asses people when they come in because you can do those day courses and get absolutely nothing out of it or people already have an aptitude for nails.
I can tell if someone can do nails or not. The qualifications do matter but at the end of the day if a person has the skills to do it we will provide as much support to get them to the right level.
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Any advice for students looking to get involved with NAF! Salon?
In terms of working for us, that is something people can do part time. We’re always open to working around people’s schedule and because we’re a growing company there is always opportunities in terms of social media – it’s all about getting your foot in the door with what you can do for us. I would definitely chance it and apply and we might just say go and do a manicure and pedicure course and then come back to us.
If you can do nail art just send us pictures of it and I’ll give you a job, that’s just how I work. If you’re good you’ll get a three month trial and everyone has been hired like that and they’re all still here. If you’re creative don’t let anything stifle that and keep going.
The NAF! gals are waiting for you to treat yo ’self – visit their website to book an appointment
