Actress Ridhima Ghosh gets her nails painted at the parlour. (Sudeshna Banerjee)

Having to travel from Ultadanga all the way to Lord Sinha Road to do up her nails made Krishna Banerjee spot a gap in supply in the eastern part of the city. “There is not a single nail parlour in our part of town. Some beauty parlours do it but they are not specialists.”

She had got her nails painted casually. “But once I had got it done, it became a habit. Unadorned nails looked bare. So I thought of opening a nail parlour myself.” She chose a corner of the new AMP Vaisaakkhi and started Glam Nails.

The parlour has been in operation since May 2 but the inauguration was done on May 29 by actress Ridhima Ghosh. “This is my first shot at nail art. I want to try the French style,” Ridhima said, opting for a classy, elegant, no frills look.

The process took over 45 minutes. “This is because she wanted a permanent look along with a nail extension,” nail artiste Nikhil Bala explained.

Nail extensions are artificial nails made of high quality plastic, about 10cm long, and are of five shapes, each curved like the tip of a finger. In case you have been wondering at the inordinate length of supermodels’ nails, this is the solution to the mystery.

“They can be cut to the length of one’s choice and are pasted to one’s real nails with a glue. But to remove them you need to come back to the parlour as it requires a mini drill machine.”

After each application of acrylic paint, a layer of gel is applied after which the hand has to be placed under a UV lamp for a process called curing which, to the layman, seems like drying. “Natural nails are brittle. Gels make them stronger,” Bala says.

While the lower end of the nail art rate card reads Rs 40 per finger, the rate increases if one opts for permanent colour and nail extensions. The style most in demand is French. With permanent colour and extension, it costs Rs 3,350 and is supposed to last for a month.

As one’s nails grow, one has to come back to the salon for refills. “In three months, an extension becomes redundant.”

Demand is supposed to grow in the wedding season. “At wedding venues, of course, we work faster and with non-permanent options as there is a queue waiting,” says the artiste who has been associated with the profession for eight years and was in Delhi earlier.

“Nail art is a fashion statement in the other metros. In Calcutta, it is just starting to catch on,” says Banerjee.

● In ancient Babylonia, it was men who coloured their nails with kohl. The higher class wore black while the lower class wore green.

● Queen Nefertiti, the 14th century BC Egyptian beauty, used red to decorate her fingernails and toenails. Queen Cleopatra, in the 1st century BC, used the juice of henna for deep rusty shades with an undertone of gold. Ordinary women were not allowed to use the same colour as the queen.

● In ancient China, during the Ming dynasty, nail lacquers and varnishes were created from the mixture of beeswax, egg whites, gelatin, vegetable dyes and gum arabic.

● The coloured nail lacquer we all know has its origin in the 1920 creation of high-gloss automobile paints by French makeup-artist Michelle Manard. Her employer, The Charles Revson Company, spotted a goldmine. Owners Charles and Joseph Revson partnered with Charles Lachman and, using Manard’s original idea, created an opaque, non-streaking nail polish based on pigments instead of dyes. In 1932, the company changed its name to Revlon and began selling the modern nail polish.