Why the Beauty Industry Has Fewer Rules Than the Takeaway Next Door

Originally published on LinkedIn, 15 October 2026.

There's a question I've been sitting with for a long time and I want to finally say it out loud.

Why is it that almost every other business on the high street has rules to follow, and beauty doesn't?

A takeaway needs a food hygiene rating. A pub needs a licence. A taxi driver needs a badge. A childminder needs Ofsted. A tattoo studio needs a licence from the local authority. A dog groomer, in some councils, needs one too.

A nail bar? A beauty salon? Outside of a small handful of London boroughs, anyone can rent a unit tomorrow morning, put a sign in the window, and start working on people's hands and bodies by lunchtime. No qualifications. No inspections. No standards. No accountability. Nothing.

And we've all just accepted it.

I've held off writing this for a long time because I never want to draw negative attention to anyone else's business. I genuinely believe there's a place for everyone in this industry. There are brilliant nail salons out there, run properly, run legitimately, run with real care by people who love what they do. This piece isn't about them.

This piece is about a very specific type of operation the industry calls "non-standard salons," and about the fact that they've become so normal on our high streets that we've stopped really seeing them. It's time we did.

If you run a legitimate beauty business in the UK, your team is fully qualified. You carry public liability insurance. You keep records. You use a booking system. You pay your taxes properly. You pay your staff properly.

But here's the bit that shocks people when they hear it. There is no national legislation in the UK that requires any of that.

You can buy the products online, qualify yourself watching a YouTube video, rent a unit, and start trading. No-one is checking whether that salon is run legitimately, or if the staff working have any kind of qualifications. Sadly most of the time there is no insurance to protect the customer either.

Insurance companies don't really check. They take the premium and move on. The catch is that if a client makes a claim, the insurer won't pay out a penny if you can't prove the staff member was qualified. Which means the protection is theoretical. The client thinks they're protected. They aren't.

And then there are the businesses that don't have insurance at all. Cash only. No appointment system. No paper trail. No accountability.

If something goes wrong in one of those salons, and things do go wrong even in the best places, there is genuinely nowhere for the client to go. No-win-no-fee solicitors won't touch it, because a business with no insurance has nothing to claim against. Apply pressure and the business shuts and reopens under a different name two doors down.

It's lawless. I'm not saying that to be dramatic. I'm saying it because that's literally what it is.

People think non-standard salons are obvious because they're cheap. That used to be true. It isn't anymore.

Prices have crept up significantly. In a lot of areas they're now within touching distance of legitimate salons. Sometimes only £5 or £10 less. Occasionally the same.

Which makes the question less about price and more about maths.

A legitimate salon paying above minimum wage, employer's national insurance, pension contributions, holiday pay, VAT where applicable, rent, business rates, professional product costs, ongoing staff training, and insurance, genuinely cannot deliver a proper service at the prices some of these places are charging. The numbers don't work.

So when you see a salon offering treatments at prices a properly run business couldn't match without going bust, the question isn't "how are they so cheap?"

The question is "what isn't being paid for?"

Sit with that one for a second. Because the answer is uncomfortable, and it's exactly why nobody in the industry says it out loud.

Let's talk about the smell. That sharp, unmistakable chemical smell that hits you when you walk into some nail bars? It's almost certainly MMA.

MMA stands for methyl methacrylate. It's a chemical originally developed for the dental industry. It's cheap, it's incredibly hard, and it's a nightmare to remove once it's on. In the early 1970s the FDA received so many injury complaints, fingernail damage, deformity, contact dermatitis, that they pulled 100% MMA products from the US market entirely.

Most professional nail products use a safer alternative called EMA, ethyl methacrylate. It costs significantly more. It performs beautifully. It doesn't leave that smell.

MMA is banned or restricted in most US states. In the UK there's currently no specific ban, which is partly how it ends up on our high streets. It's used because it's cheap. The trade-off is that it can cause permanent damage to the nail bed, allergic reactions, and respiratory problems with prolonged exposure. Which is why, if you look closely, you'll sometimes see the nail tech wearing a mask while the client sitting six inches away isn't.

Read that sentence again. The person who works there every day is protecting themselves. The client paying for the service isn't being protected at all.

And here's the other bit. The natural nail has to be filed down to almost paper-thin levels to make MMA stick to it. Once it's on, it doesn't budge. That's not beauty. That's damage.

Most clients have no idea what to look for. Why would they? It isn't their job to know.

So here's what I'd quietly pay attention to next time you're choosing where to spend your money.

Cash only. No booking system. No visible price list. No consultation at the start of the appointment. Staff who don't make eye contact or don't talk to you. A strong, sharp chemical smell when you walk in. Posters of well-known professional brands on the walls but no actual product packaging visible at the stations.

One or two of these on their own probably mean nothing. Several of them together? That's worth paying attention to.

The reason non-standard salons can run on the prices they charge isn't because they've found a clever business model.

It's because the people doing the work often aren't being paid properly. Or in some cases, at all.

This isn't a conspiracy theory. It's documented public information. It's been reported by the BBC, the Guardian, and Sky News over the last few years. It's been investigated by police forces across multiple UK counties. The Home Office has publicly named the sector as a known area of concern for modern slavery. Gangmasters and Labour Abuse Authority reports have flagged it repeatedly.

The cost of that manicure isn't really the cost of that manicure. And I'm saying it clearly because I don't think most clients have any idea. They walk in, they get their nails done, they walk out, they tell their friends about the price. The whole thing runs on us not asking.

Honestly? Because the people who could speak up loudest are the ones being undercut by it.

Salon owners running things properly. Paying their team properly. Paying VAT, business rates, suppliers. Training their staff. Watching a shop opposite charge less for the same service while carrying none of those costs. Feeling completely powerless.

The second you say anything publicly, you sound like you're just complaining about competition. So most owners stay quiet.

Also, let's be honest about why salon owners stay quiet. Speaking up about this doesn't just draw industry attention. It sometimes draws attention from people you really don't want attention from. The kind of people the Home Office and the GLAA have publicly linked to this sector. Running a high street business is hard enough without adding that to the pile. So most of us keep our heads down. I understand it. I've done it. I'm not doing it anymore.

This isn't really about competition. It's about the fact that there are workers being exploited on our high streets right now. There are clients being given products that can damage their nails for life. There are profits being moved around in cash that almost certainly aren't ending up in the right places.

And we, as a country, have quietly decided not to look at it.

The honest answer is that proper regulation needs to come from the top. Industry bodies like the British Beauty Council and the NHBF have been campaigning for years for mandatory licensing across the whole sector. There's been progress on aesthetics. Following a public consultation that drew almost 12,000 responses, the Department of Health and Social Care has confirmed new licensing rules for cosmetic procedures, with high-risk treatments restricted to healthcare professionals and businesses offering botulinum toxin and fillers required to meet strict licensing conditions set by local authorities.

Brilliant. For aesthetics. Nail bars are still largely outside all of it.

Local councils, police, immigration enforcement and HMRC each hold a piece of this puzzle. None of them on their own have the resources to deal with it properly, and realistically, the high street nail bar isn't near the top of anyone's national priority list.

Which means until the rules catch up, this is on us.

I'm not asking you to boycott budget nail salons. That wouldn't be fair. There are legitimate ones doing things right.

I'm asking you to look. Properly.

If something feels off, trust your gut. If a salon is charging prices that genuinely couldn't cover the cost of running a real business, ask why. If there's no booking system and only cash is taken, ask why. If the staff don't look at you, or seem afraid to speak, ask why. If the smell is overwhelming, ask why.

You don't have to confront anyone. You don't have to make a scene. You just have to vote with your money.

Because every time we choose a legitimate, properly run salon, and that doesn't have to mean expensive, plenty of brilliant independent salons are well priced and beautifully run, we're saying yes to a high street where people are paid properly, products are safe, and accountability exists.

Every time we don't ask the question, we're saying it's fine. Even when, quietly, we know it isn't.

For the salon owners reading this. The ones doing it right and watching the unfairness of the playing field every single day.

You're not imagining it. It is unfair. It's also bloody exhausting.

But the answer isn't to lower your standards to compete. It's to keep doing what you're doing, keep talking about it openly, and keep building businesses that prove there's another way.

The conversation is shifting. Slowly. Industry bodies are louder than they used to be. Regulators are starting to pay attention. Clients are starting to ask better questions.

Our job is to keep telling the truth until the rules catch up.

I'll keep saying it. I hope you will too.

I've written a longer piece on our website that goes into the detail. Drill speeds and what they actually do to your nail. E-files used properly versus used to strip seven layers off in seconds. Why pedicure foot spas are a hygiene issue most clients have never thought about. Ring burn and matrix damage, and how to spot them before it's too late.

Read the full piece here.

Lots of love, Amy x