Forget Labubu: SCGs are latest collectibles

Semi-cured gel nail strips, or SCGs, feature intricate designs and can be applied at a fraction of the cost of a salon visit. People are collecting them by the hundreds, writes Aimee Ortiz from New York

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Emily Uhlig of Westhampton, Massachusetts, began selling sets from her enormous collection of nail strips to make ends meet when she was laid off at the peak of the Covid pandemic.

After the coronavirus pandemic took her job, her mother’s livelihood and her father’s life, Emily Uhlig needed a way to make ends meet.

She found it in an unlikely place: the enormous collection of semi-cured gel nail strips that she had amassed while much of the world was shut down.

Ms Uhlig, 37, of Westhampton, Massachusetts, was at the vanguard of a trend. The strips, which are applied to the nail, trimmed of any excess, cured under an ultraviolet light and filed, are the latest iteration of nail wraps to garner a cult following. SCGs, as the strips are known, often feature intricate designs and allow consumers to effectively give themselves a manicure at home for a fraction of the time and money they would spend at a salon. When correctly applied and cared for, the nails can last up to two weeks.

In a previous life, Ms Uhlig had run a tanning salon that also offered gel manicures. The salon shuttered long before the pandemic, but it gave Ms Uhlig a knowledge base when it came to gel manicures. Then one day in 2020, she saw an ad for Ohora, the South Korean brand credited with starting the craze around the at-home gel nail strips.

“It was like gel nail polish had a baby with a regular nail wrap, and you had the ease of application of a regular wrap with the durability of gel,” she said. “I saw this and I was like, ‘This is amazing.”