CND Hosts Open House in Garden Grove

On November 19th, CND hosted its first open house for Vietnamese salon professionals at the Embassy Suites in Garden Grove, Calif. Held in both English and Vietnamese, the salon professional event featured a main stage with group education and interactive demo stations where attendees tried out CND’s lines of professional products. CND education ambassadors were on hand to help attendees with product application and technical questions. Throughout the event, products and gift certificates were raffled off to attendees. (Congratulations to Etney Pennock who won the grand prize of a $500 CND shopping spree!)

CND education ambassador Jenna Le (right) commanded the stage as a presenter and translator for the event. You may remember her from CND’s first course in Vietnamese on the Secrets of Shellac, during Premiere Orlando last June. Guest speaker Mike Vo (above left), president of the Vietnamese American Nail Association, introduced the mission of the new association and ways the association plans on working with the nail community to help strengthen the industry. “We’re here to service the nail techs and their goals in the nail industry, and if we don’t have the answers, we can help lead them in the right direction,” Vo says.

CND’s own research development principal scientist Thong Vu presented the fundamentals of Shellac and the products involved to create a proper Shellac service. In the photo above, he shows attendees the proper way clients should place their hands in a CND Shellac UV lamp (full hand in, with pinky and thumb resting on the the hand plate).

The open house was hosted by CND accounts manager Erin Godlevsky and Jan Zanettini, CND’s national sales manager for the school division. Zanettini loves the nail industry and has seen it grow and change in the 30 years she has been a part of it. She also understands that many schools lack a comprehensive education on nails. “I wanted to elevate the nail industry and set up a program that would endear the instructors to make sure that their maximum goal was high, as the minimum goal for the instructor becomes the maximum goal for the students,” Zanettini says. “The school program we have is one that doesn’t compare to anything in the industry.”

Zanettini (far right) is seen here with CND education ambassador My Hanh Clites, principal scientist Thong Vu (second from right), and Advance Beauty College co-owner Tam Nguyen, whose school is part of the CND educational program. Zanettini credits Nguyen for telling her about the rich history of the Vietnamese nail industry.

CND education ambassador Michele Huynh (left) helps Tuong Ngoc Lan at the Additives play station.

Now CND is expanding their educational resources to include more events catered to the Vietnamese nail professional. “We want to be the advocate to help salons build their businesses, to give them the confidence to use the best products and offer the best services to raise the bar, and we have the education to offer them,” Zanettini says. She plans on using the success of this first event to mobilize more events in cities across the U.S that have a strong Vietnamese presence.

CND will host a similar open house event in Dallas on Sept. 9, Washington on Oct. 7, and Atlanta on Nov. 4.

CND is also looking for bilingual educators. For more information on becoming a CND education ambassador, visit www.cnd.com/becomeCNDEA.

— Kim