Mariam Camila Sosa strikes a pose to indicate off her freshly adorned fingernails, at a home-run nail salon in Havana, Cuba, Tuesday, June 24, 2025. (AP Photograph/Ramon Espinosa)
HAVANA — Cuban ladies are embracing extravagant nail artwork with many prepared to spend the cash to have extraordinarily lengthy and complicated nails regardless of the financial obstacles.
Whereas over-the-top nail designs have lengthy been frequent elsewhere, in Cuba they stand out. It’s because most Cubans have little disposable earnings and procuring the gildings isn’t straightforward.
A deepening financial disaster makes virtually each side of life in Cuba difficult for the inhabitants. Lengthy strains for buses, energy outages and shortages are a part of on a regular basis life on the island.
For individuals who have mastered the work, whether or not from on-line video tutorials or visiting manicurists from different nations, extravagant nails have grow to be an necessary supply of earnings in Cuba’s restricted personal financial system.
Maite Hernandez will get right into a taxi to go house after having her nails finished at a home-run salon in Havana, Cuba, Saturday, July 5, 2025. (AP Photograph/Ramon Espinosa)
Just lately, Cuban manicurist Marisel Darias Valdés spent almost six hours making use of and adorning the acrylic extensions for a consumer.
She arrange a nail salon at her house in Havana. There she shows the specialised, imported merchandise which can be costly and really tough to acquire within the metropolis.
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The nails that Darias adorned for her consumer, Mariam Camila Sosa, have been no less than 2.5 centimeters lengthy. Sosa selected the cartoon character SpongeBob as a result of it’s her daughter’s favourite.
The designs of the work and nail decorations are diversified and all handmade. With this stage of element, Darias stated she couldn’t deal with greater than two shoppers per day.
“Earlier than it was a half-hour service,” she stated. “They have been desk manicures, pure paint and that’s it. Now it’s all grow to be artwork, it’s not simply repair them and also you’re finished.”
Cuban ladies spend as a lot as 3x the common month-to-month wage
“Cuban ladies are very useless. They could lack meals, however their nails, hair, eyelashes, and ft all the time need to be well-groomed,” Darias stated.
There isn’t a official determine on the variety of these specialised companies. However for the reason that pandemic, the small personal areas have flourished, and a few have turned it into an artwork type.
Manicurists have additionally realized to grow to be content material creators with refined social media accounts to advertise and promote their companies. They make the most of Cuba’s not-always-reliable connection to the web.
Manicurist Dayana Roche showcases a few of her quite a few social media postings.
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“It’s the elementary device to draw the general public, the shoppers. And you need to create lots of content material (on social media) networks as a result of that’s the place everybody sees your work,” stated Roche.
It’s a method of incomes a dwelling. Some are college graduates, however this job affords a superb various to low wages in a troublesome financial situation.
Every consumer agrees with their manicurist on the price of the service, which may vary from $10 to $40. That’s some huge cash in a rustic the place a month-to-month state wage is round 5,000 Cuban pesos (about $13). Nevertheless, many households depend on remittances from kinfolk overseas and state subsidies.
The supplies are introduced into Cuba from the US or Panama by the manicurists themselves or kinfolk. Or they’re purchased from resellers in Cuba. A small bottle {of professional} nail polish alone can value $15.
Miralys Maura Cruz and her sister go about their every day home chores with shocking agility regardless of their crystal-adorned 2-inch nails.
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“With out my nails, I’m no person, I do know they don’t seem to be low-cost, and nails are a luxurious, it’s my luxurious,” stated Cruz.
