A Hand-y solution: how a couple of newcomers took matters into their own hands and nailed the salon business.

RONNIE Yesharim knew so little about the nail salon business that he got fleeced the first time he went out to buy manicure tools.

But a little dented pride wasn't enough to deter him.

Yesharim wanted to start a chain of mid-priced nail salons with the ambience of a pricey spa and procedures that practically guaranteed it would be free from the health concerns that have plagued the industry. He figured the niche he was staking out in what has grown to be a $6.4 billion industry was so promising he could afford a few mistakes along the way.

A little more than a year later, Hands To Hold, a Sherman Oaks salon with 16 technicians, is booked nearly to capacity. The shop, open seven days a week, has about 3,500 active customers, most of whom visit regularly. Marion Brando paid a visit, along with Jon Lovitz. So did Paula Abdul. And Yesharim and his partner, Eyal Ben-Nissan, are getting ready to open a second outlet in Encino this summer.

"A lot of people are getting frustrated by these Vietnamese places because it's in and out, but the quality isn't there," said Ken Cassidy, whose company, Kassidy Salon Management Consulting, works with beauty salons and spas. "I think there's a great market for that."

The Vietnamese, who have dominated the nail salon industry in California for a decade, turned what had been a luxury affordable only by the affluent into a mass market service by offering manicures and pedicures at prices often less than one quarter the cost at a hair salon or day spa.

Though no hard statistics exist, some have estimated that a staggering 80 percent of nail salons in Southern California are Vietnamese-owned. And as more new immigrants flock to the industry, attracted by the low cost of entry, the high earnings potential and a supply chain that is also Vietnamese-owned, low-priced salons have proliferated.

The competition has kept prices at rock bottom, but it has also forced some to cut corners, resulting in several highly publicized public health problems related to poorly sanitized tools and equipment like nail clippers and foot baths.

Last year, the Bureau of Barbering and Cosmetology issued 1,335 so-called informal actions, most having to do with health and safety issues, to the state's 32,900 hair and nail salons and barber shops. One case, in which 110 cases of bacterial infection were so severe they led to permanent scarring, was traced to a single nail salon in Watsonville. It attracted the attention of the national media and led to an expose on TV newsmagazine 20/20.

The case was resurrected in recent weeks when the New England Journal of Medicine issued a study on the incident.

Hands To Hold was intended to eliminate those concerns. Customers get their own kit of tools, which is then stored away until their next visit, and, among other precautions, foot baths (used for pedicures) are treated with anti-bacterial spray so there's little, if any, risk of infection or disease. And in contrast to the rickety storefronts with worn furniture that characterize most low-cost salons, Hands To Hold is designed to look like a more expensive salon, with lavender decor, music and even a DVD player to entertain kids.

After hearing about Hands To Hold from a friend, a customer who wanted only to be identified as Ronnie S. decided to make the trip over from Mulholland Drive. She has been coming back ever since for her acrylics, a service that costs $10 more at Hands To Hold than it did at the Encino salon she used to frequent.

"This place is unique," she said. "First and foremost, it's clean. It's big and spacious. They ask you if you want coffee. That's special. That's Beverly Hills kind of service.

At $12 for a manicure and $18 for a pedicure, prices are somewhat higher than a typical Vietnamese-owned salon, which charges $7 to $9 for manicures and $12 to $15 for pedicures. But Hands To Hold is far less expensive than a day spa, which can charge $45 or more for a manicure.

"We're working real close to what our costs are, but if you do enough of them you start making money," said Yesharim. He won't disclose revenues, but Yesharim points out he turned enough of a profit in his first year in business to open a second salon about eight months ahead of his initially anticipated schedule.

The idea for Hands To Hold came from Yesharim's own experience. A wholesale jeweler with what he describes as a multi-million dollar business, he uses his hands to show off his wares, and regularly frequented a local salon for manicures to keep them well-groomed.

"I always used to dread the fact that I had to do my nails," Yesharim said. "I always felt there was no real cleanliness in the tools, as well as with the actual premises. When you do something as an indulgence, it should be enjoyable, and it's a chore."

Yesharim's partner in the jewelry business, Ben-Nissan, had the same concerns and, knowing he was not alone, Yesharim slowly began to hatch a plan.

"I did my own little research," he said. "I went to a four-block area on Ventura Boulevard from Studio City to Sherman Oaks and counted 118 salons. It was mind-boggling."

Those numbers assured Yesharim there was plenty of demand. But the hard part still lay ahead: finding a suitable location and building it out properly, hiring technicians and, most important, assuring that conditions in the salon were sanitary.

"There were not many solutions," said Yesharim. He could insist technicians sterilize the tools, but he could not be certain that they would. He could ask customers to bring their own tools, but he worried that would turn a lot of people away.

The answer was to provide a personal tool kit that would be stored and re-used each time the customer returned to the shop. That way each set of clippers, cuticle sticks and the like only touched one set of hands.

Yesharim still didn't know much about the actual operation of such a system. When he took his idea for individual kits to an Anaheim company, he walked out with a $500 kit that should have cost less than 20 bucks.

"The people saw we didn't know anything," he said. "It's like what people say happens when a woman goes to a mechanic."

Yesharim's wife steered him to Say-On where he purchased a more reasonably priced kit, and found a supplier for small boxes to store them, leaving still the problem of where to find employees.

Yesharim was not opposed to using the Vietnamese technicians that have flocked to the business, where they can earn $400 to $500 per week before tips. What he didn't like was the fact that most of the technicians in the salons he frequented didn't speak English. He went to an area in Garden Grove known locally as Little Saigon, found the dominant Vietnamese newspaper and, with the help of the ad staff, placed a classified ad in Vietnamese, specifying that applicants must speak English.

The partners added cabinet capacity for another 1,300 kits. They also came up with a system to review the logs of clients every two months, and discard the kits of those who had not returned.

Hands To Hold opened on Feb. 3, 2001 with storage capacity for 2,200 manicure kits. Two months later, the news of the Watsonville fiasco broke, and Yesharim placed an ad in the Los Angeles Times to take advantage of what had become a hot public health issue. Within a week, the salon had 500 new customers and, by the end of May, all 2,200 storage spaces were full.

"At one point we were recycling every month, but that was not acceptable," said Yesharim. "People have lives and sometimes they can't get to the salon for a month and a half, and that doesn't mean their kit should be thrown away."

Because most of his customers do return regularly, the salon can only accommodate 10 to 15 new customers a week, so, Yesharim said, growth must come from adding new stores.

"My idea is to open as many as we can in the next 10 years," said Yesharim.