10 Jan /14

Manicure

Manicure was introduced by two unlikely sources.

Ironically it was in the McKean County Miner newspaper in 1877 that the words manicure (and pedicure) as a profession “I am not a manicure – pedicure is my only trade” first appeared in English.

Even more strangely, it was a was an American music critic Theophilus Finck who wrote books on Chopin, Paderewski, Grieg and Massenet and was a major advocate of Wagner in the United States that continued with the word. He made his contribution to the history of words in his first book, Romantic Love and Personal Beauty, a more or less academic analysis, which was published in New York in 1887. With quotable sayings such as “Is not a kiss the very autograph of love?” or “We are all born for love; it is the principle of existence and it’s only end!” But it also included the comment “There are not nearly as many secrets in manicure as people imagine” which was the first time the word was used in print as a noun.

That the word almost immediately went into the mainstream is shown by the fact that very shortly after a “Combination Toilet and Manicure Case” was advertised in the Montgomery Ward mail order catalogue of 1895 (for more information).

Now the nails business, which was first cited in a miners magazine is big business. According to the Nails Mag, the business generated around about USD 7.5 billion in the US alone for 2012. Different levels of professionalism apply across the country. For example, no time at all is required to be licensed as a manicurist in Connecticut, while Alabama demands 750 hours to be given a licence. It seems that Finck did not quite understand – there are probably more secrets in manicure than people imagine.