Every weekend since the beginning of the Fall 2025 semester, a dormitory room on North Campus has been transformed into a makeshift nail salon: The humble setup includes a desk and two chairs supplied by Cornell Housing, and the nail supplies of McKenna Alves ’29.
Alves, better known as @manisbykenna on Instagram, is majoring in environment and sustainability in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She dedicates hours of her weekends to servicing the nails of her fellow Cornellians, drawing, painting and airbrushing their requested designs.
Her nail tech journey started long before she arrived in Ithaca, when she became interested in nail art during the boredom of the COVID-19 quarantine period. She recalls watching videos of people doing nails and, due to her curious nature, decided to buy “a little kit from Amazon” to see if her interest could blossom into something more.
Alves started off her nail journey as a hobby — doing her friends and family’s nails for fun and practicing different designs she found on the internet. Her hobby turned serious after attending the Flores Institute of Nail Design during the summer before her senior year. The Flores Institute, “Arizona’s First Nail Art School,” according to their website, “certifies and prepares future nail techs to become licensed by the state [of Arizona].” In order to attend the school, Alves took on a summer job and saved up $5000 — the cost of the six-month experience — to learn from seasoned professionals and gain practical experience designing nails.
During nail school, she spent 25 hours a week attending classes, where she picked up “the basics” of nail art such as “sanitizing products [and] using proper techniques.”
At the Flores Institute, Alves worked in the salon that was attached to the school, gaining experience in the social aspect of being a nail technician while learning how to be more efficient in her service. After completing the six-month course at the Flores Institute, Alves was equipped with “the foundation [she] needed for [her] current business.”
As Alves made the transition from high school to college, her family encouraged her to continue her nail art business in Ithaca. She created her nail Instagram account while at the Flores Institute and over the summer, she began following Cornell incoming freshmen. The high demand for nail technicians in Ithaca became clear — incoming students began to book their appointments before the fall semester had even begun.
Alves’ move to Ithaca, from her perspective, is what allowed her ‘side hustle’ to develop into an actual business.
She spoke of the oversaturated nail market in her home state of Arizona that prevented her business from growing as much as it has in Ithaca. It was only when she came to Ithaca, and experienced a sudden influx of demand, that she had to create a Google Calendar to manage the appointments for her clients.
Comparing her nail tech experience in Arizona and Ithaca, Alves said, “Now, I have to actually look at how much I’m making and put money aside to buy [nail] products and make sure I can still make a profit off of it.” Furthermore, due to her number of clients and the limited time she has to fulfill their requests, she has been forced to master the art of efficiency in her work.
Alves’ nail appointments are limited to weekends. In September, she took on 11 clients, but her requests began to ramp up significantly in October. She credits this rise in traction to the success of her Instagram account and her clients recommendations promoting her business to their friends. Alves then took on 17 clients in October, averaging four to five clients each weekend. In November, she took on 14.
Alves acknowledged she is “still in the process” of figuring out how to balance her business while still prioritizing academics. When prelim season began, Alves found a way to kill two birds with one stone: She would ask her clients to test her using Quizlet while she was doing their nails. Moving forward, Alves noted, “I’m probably going to cut back [on nail appointments] even more than I have because things have been getting hectic and [I have] other obligations.”
Her decision to cut back on appointments, however, does not speak to a loss of passion. When talking about the role that doing nails holds in her life, Alves described it as a retreat into “her own world,” and “a way to escape academics.”
Alves finds happiness in seeing the joy her work brings to her fellow Cornellians, and is especially proud to provide an affordable way for stressed students, like herself, to “do something nice for themselves and invest in themselves.”
Her business has provided unanticipated benefits to her as well, as she highlighted the friendships she has formed with her clients: “I’ve met so many new girls that are so awesome and I’ve made a couple new friends out of [my business].”
When it comes to her personal style as a nail artist, Alves prefers to have a design to follow, but is happy to provide her input on the shape, style and length of nails, as long as the client has reference pictures to accompany their requests. While she enjoys doing a variety of designs, she crowned abstract designs as her favorite, noting, “Everyone loves a good French tip, but it’s nice to be able to tap into [my child-like], creative side.”
The abstract star nails featured on her Instagram page includes some of her favorite elements of nail design: “simple and cute, but different” at the same time.
Alves’ success in turning her hobby of creating nail art into a profitable, growing business speaks to her savviness and talent as a student entrepreneur. The powers of Instagram and word of mouth have proved to be her most useful tools for building her business, bringing the demand for beauty technicians among Cornellians directly to her doorstep.
Jessi Zheng is a first-year in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. She can be reached at jz2423@cornell.edu.
