Eastern Europeans are elevating Charlotte nail salons
'They treat it as not just some sort of quick, clean process, but a form of art'
The following article appeared in the April 26, 2024, edition of The Charlotte Ledger, an e-newsletter with smart and original local news for Charlotte. We offer free and paid subscription plans. More info here.
Eastern European immigrants are opening nail salons and upgrading manicures; doing nails ‘on a completely different level’
Russian manicures are gaining popularity in U.S. cities because they’re more detailed and last longer than traditional American manicures, and as more immigrants move to the Charlotte area from Eastern European countries, they’re being offered at an increasing number of salons. Here, Anjela Cretu performs a Russian manicure on customer Jennifer Smith at Cretu salon.
by Cristina Bolling
When Anjela Cretu arrived in Charlotte from Moscow in 2018, she was excited about the city’s growing Eastern European community, but she realized that one service was sorely lacking — places for women like her to get their nails done.
Eastern European culture is big on beauty rituals, and U.S. nail salons, with their acetone polish removers, acrylic extensions and soak-and-cut cuticle care were a big disappointment for Cretu and her fellow immigrants from former Soviet countries.
They were used to so-called Russian manicures, or dry manicures, which involve intricate cuticle cleaning, precise gel polish application and often detailed artwork or ombre effects.
It was a problem, Cretu realized, that she could help solve.
She’d been doing nails professionally in her native Moldova and then in Moscow for more than a decade, so just before Covid in 2020, she started a Russian manicure business in Pineville in a small space with one chair.
Word got out among Ukranian and Russian women, who flocked to her for her services and stretched her waitlist to book months in advance.
Before long, American women took note of their Eastern European friends’ polished nails and started booking Cretu, too.
In 2022, she expanded into a chic, roomy salon on the second floor of a two-story shopping center off Pineville-Matthews Road, hired experienced and licensed manicurists from countries including Ukraine, Poland, Russia and Moldova, and her business continued to grow.
Now, the salon, called Cretu, has fewer than 10% of its customers from Eastern Europe, Cretu said.
A handful of other salons with Eastern European owners, like Nobu Beautique Hair & Spa in the Carmel Village shopping center, also offer the specialty nail care.
Together, they are changing the shape of nail services across Charlotte, which for many years have been led by Asian immigrants, often Vietnamese.