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                                           Polish potential: are politicians the real drips?

Has it been claws out over the cornflakes in the Gove household this week? First, the Education Secretary’s plans to disqualify vocational courses - such as Nail Technology - from counting as GCSE’s hit the presses. The very next day, the formidable Sarah Vine, Beauty Ed of the Times, bezzies with SamCam and wife of Gove published a beltingly brilliant defence of the UK beauty biz and all work in it.  “This assumption that all things beauty are just well, a bit silly, irritates me,’ she snarled. ‘It’s not just that appearance is something we all care about, whether we like to admit it or not; it’s also that beauty is a very serious and substantial business, and an important sector of our economy.’ Go Sarah!  Latest figures (Mintel, 2010) show the total UK beauty market to be worth a staggering £14.27 billion with makeup accounting for  £1.275 billion and nail polish alone, £179 million. 

So that other bit of news this week - that nail bars are the fastest-growing businesses in the high street, making up 16.5% of all new outlets in the past three years -  seems curiously at odds with Grinchy Gove’s ‘pan the polish’ policy. There’s a recession on, dammit. Shouldn’t we be encouraging our youth by recognising skills that probably will keep them gainfully employed?  (As most of us will be working our fingers to the bone for the foreseeable future, it’s a moot point whether we’ll give a stuff if the technician rescuing our nails has a GCSE or not). But as Vine so rightly says, if the beauty biz was a male-dominated industry, like armaments or shipbuilding, we’d be trumpeting its successes from the rooftops. Instead, anyone remotely involved tends to be regarded as an air-head. Vine confesses that people are taken aback when she tells them her job’s writing about makeup. Shouldn’t she be doing something more serious?  Crone has literally inspired laughter from her own husband’s cerebral mates - while their wives have quizzed her covertly about skincare.  I could go on all night about how our pursed-lipped Northern European ethic regards physical sublimation either shameful or as a learning difficulty outed. But I’d rather quote Vindicating Vine one last time. The beauty industry ‘is a sector that offers great possibilities for employment and social mobility,’ she says. ‘It doesn’t matter which school you went to or who your parents are: if you’re good, you’ll make it to the top.’ Sarah, you’ve so nailed it.

Above: OPI Nail Polish in Dutchya Just Love OPI, £12 from the Holland Collection. For stockists and salons, call 01923 240 010 or visit www.lenawhite.co.uk