The U.K.'s Favorite Luxury Nail Salon Is Ready to Take on the US Market – Latest Fashion Trends & Style Tips September 10, 2025 at 05:30PM
📰 The U.K.'s Favorite Luxury Nail Salon Is Ready to Take on the US Market
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"The nail salon isn't relaxing," quips reality TV personality/podcaster Gabby Windey in what I think is her most relatable TikTok video of all. "No, it's an interactive experience. My forearms are engaged from holding my nails up. My inguinals are engaged from getting my toes done at the same time. My assh*le is engaged because I'm nervous about what the shape is gonna be. This isn't a salon, it's a workout."
These are first-world problems, to be sure, but they're also near-universal truths for those who get their nails done professionally.
Townhouse — a U.K.-based nail salon chain that's making its foray into the U.S. market — is on a mission to change all of that. Founder and Creative Director Juanita Huber-Millet had experienced these and other common frustrations for years. So she set out to make over the business of making people('s hands) over.
The entrepreneur initially studied ballet, hoping to land a spot at a major dance company in London. But after an injury took that dream away, she pivoted to focus on another of her creative passions: fashion. Huber-Millet studied the subject in university and went on to work for companies like Matches Fashion post-grad. During that time, she also experienced frustration when it came to getting her nails done, noticing inconsistent quality and service, even at the same salon. She also identified inefficiencies (like having to wait despite having an appointment) that didn't seem to be an issue in other lifestyle categories, like at gyms or pilates studios. So she thought: Why not overhaul the nail salon experience?
Photo: Courtesy of Townhouse
In 2018, she launched Townhouse in London. Its mission was to offer high-quality, consistent nail services with a chic, fashionably decorated, efficient salon and well-compensated, taken-care-of nail tech talent. Huber-Millet incorporated technology to make the experience more seamless and suited to the busy lifestyles of the salon's London clientele. She aimed to offer trendsetting (rather than trend-following) nail designs, an organized staff training program and the opportunity for employees to advance through the company over time. Basically, she was solving for about every issue that plagued the nail industry in one fell swoop. It was something of an instant success story.
Seven years later, Huber Millet is ready to bring that concept to the U.S. market. Townhouse opened the doors to its first stateside location in Beverly Hills, Calif. last year, followed by a West Hollywood salon opening in July of 2025. The brand's first two New York City outposts are in the trendy Tribeca and Flatiron neighborhoods, which opened in August and September, respectively.
"New York is very similar to London. Similar customer, similar love of nails. So it felt like the right spot," Huber-Millet told me during a recent visit to the new Tribeca location. But the U.S. as a whole is a major opportunity for the company, according to the founder. "There are almost 6,000 nail salons in the U.S., but there's no chain that's big, that's grown, that's hit — and that's crazy. You think about it, every other industry, there are so many chains across every one of those industries that are super successful, whether it's hair drying, massage, waxing — there's huge chains, but there's just nothing when it comes to nails."
I sat down with Huber-Millet — over a meticulous micro French manicure — to learn about Townhouse's next chapter. Read on for the highlights of our conversation.
Photo: Courtesy of Townhouse
How did your background in fashion influence your ideas for Townhouse?
I've actually brought that into Townhouse in a way. We have on our iPads [which clients use to sign in upon arrival and scroll through polish color and nail art options], we've got the color library, and we also have a lookbook, which is a curated selection of our nail designs.
Like in fashion, we do spring/summer and autumn/winter [collections]. So we have a six-month limited edition selection; they're all inspired essentially from fashion trends, but also beauty, and kind of combining that together into something that's wearable, elevated, chic but — it's also quite versatile. It will work across different nail lengths. Also, if a client wants a different color, if someone wants to change up a design, they can. That's something that's from my background in fashion.
Did you have any other business training when you launched the company?
I studied business, but other than that, no. But that's why, when I started expanding, I focused on really building out a team that had different expertise that could support with that. It was really challenging at the beginning because it was all very new. I had run a salon before in the past, which was like a beauty industry crash course.
Photo: Courtesy of Townhouse
How does Townhouse differentiate itself from other nail salons?
I wanted it to be a very inviting space [where] customers could relax and enjoy themselves. I also wanted the brand to be aspirational.
And then, the more I looked into nail care and understanding nail salons, the more I realized that there's really no opportunity for artists to progress in this industry. So I wanted to create roles across the salon, but also in the head office, where there was that career progression. And that also helps with having that consistent treatment quality. From the beginning, we had a trainer on board, so everyone that starts with us, they have to be qualified and they have to spend some time working in the industry, but then when they come on board with us, they do two weeks of training, and it's the same train for everyone. We call it the 'Townhouse way.'
How else do you ensure the same quality of treatments across all locations?
Everyone has to perform the same steps — the Townhouse way — for each manicure. What that means is if you go [see any nail tech], you will have the same treatment rather than feeling like, Oh, I saw this person, and they weren't as good.
At the end of the day, people go on maternity leave, people go on holiday, people are sick, you can't always see that same person. So that was really important to make sure that we have that consistency for treatment quality.
And then, we only do manicures and pedicures — we don't do anything else. We offer express [treatments] all the way through luxury, and we use only the best products. We don't do acrylics, you don't have that acrylic smell hit you when you walk in.
Photo: Courtesy of Townhouse
Are there any other ways that you've built the business differently from traditional nail salons?
The main example is technology. Technology is just not used at nail salons at all. And that's been fantastic for us. We built our platform ourselves. We have a big tech team in the U.K., and we brought on our CTO about nine months into the business.
One of the functionalities that we've built is around utilization. So when customers book appointments, normally they see tons and tons of different appointments, depending on the day. But for the tech we've built, there's a 'recommender;' there are three slots that it will recommend, which are best for us utilization-wise, so that we don't have gaps in the schedule. That way, we can fit more customers in and the team members have got a consistent day as well. That was a complete transformation for us.
Townhouse is also really different in how it treats its employees. Tell me about that.
Typically, [nail salon employees] don't have contracts, there's no kind of reliability or security in that regard for them. Typically they're underpaid; a lot of the time they're just given cash. With us, of course you get a contract, of course you have reliability from us.
A lot of the time they're like, 'Oh my gosh, we've never experienced this before.' At typical nail salons, you'll have the nail artists, and then the owner and that's it. So there's no [opportunity for career] progression for them, other than even leaving and doing freelance or becoming an owner of a nail salon themselves. We've got multiple different forms of opportunities.
We have the starting levels: Level one, and that's doing the basic treatments. Then there's the next step, which is more advanced, so it's going into extensions, more leaning into the nail art. And then you've got the bespoke nail artists, with really technical skills. We train them on those skills, and they're paid throughout the training. And of course, at each level that you step up, your salary increases.
And then after that, we have shift leaders in the salon. Shift leaders also do treatments, and then we have managers. So we've got all of these different roles. If somebody wants to progress, they have the opportunity.
Separately from that, we've got our head office roles. [Past nail techs have] moved into training roles at the corporate office.
[Editor's note: Townhouse offers its employees universal private healthcare, a minimum of 20 days paid time off and career development opportunities; existing staffers accounted for more than 300 promotions in 2024 alone, per the company.]
Photo: Courtesy of Townhouse
Did you always known it would be a chain? How did you take things beyond just one salon?
The plan was to create a chain and expand as much as possible. Then, about three months after opening, [British department store] Harrods approached me and said, 'We'd love for you to take over our full nail offering.' So we had our second salon [in Harrods], which is still open now. That was a stepping stone for us. It was just fantastic for us as a brand and building our reputation.
What else helped the brand take off?
We had such a great response from customers in the U.K., from press members, from all the influencers [who wanted] to come in. We've never paid an influencer or anything like that. So it's always really authentic, organic content that they create. And that's something that has been really important from the beginning because they really build a love for the brand rather than it being an ad.
What was the next phase of scaling the business?
We built out the team in the U.K. so that it could support multiple salons. Now in the U.K., we've got 40 salons, and they are company-owned, but now we've started franchising. We won't open any more of our own salons in the U.K, just franchises.
We're working with fantastic franchise partners across different areas of the U.K, big companies that have got the Pret [a Manger] franchise, the Starbucks franchise, so we can trust them. That was always my concern, trusting someone else with the brand. It's an exciting time for us in the U.K. — we think there's probably going to be about 100 [locations] that end up opening across the U.K. [with] all of those different partners.
Townhouse nail art
What else is Townhouse focused on right now, beyond opening more salons in the U.S.?
I feel like membership is just the norm over here. It's not as common in the U.K., but it's becoming more popular. So that's also something that we're going to now incorporate into our U.S. salons. We'll likely take it to the U.K. as well.
And then we launched our product line about a year and a half ago, and it took quite a few years to get them going. I wanted [products] that had better ingredients and made sense to a customer. The next thing with our product line is that we're going to be launching polish and also gel [under the Townhouse brand]. It's another way to help fix that inconsistency across other brands that we've found.
We wanted to create something that was really high-quality, as natural as possible, and with the right color range as well. We really like the [polish brands] that we using right now, but it just felt like we could improve on it.
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