At her desk in a press-on nail workshop in Donghai, a county in eastern China’s Jiangsu province, Chai Fenfen has hung a large print of a 100-yuan banknote.

“I came here to make money,” she says. “That’s what keeps me motivated.”

After jobs selling insurance and real estate, Chai joined the workshop in 2024. Making nails offers steady earnings and the flexibility to take her children to and from school. Workers there are paid by the piece, typically earning 3,000 to 4,000 yuan a month ($450 to $600).

But for the businesses supplying that work, the early boom has given way to fierce competition over price.

Once known for its crystal trade, Donghai used its existing e-commerce networks to build an industry around press-on nails — ready-made artificial nails that customers attach themselves. By 2024, the county had nearly 25,000 businesses in the trade, according to its press-on nail industry association.

Chai’s employer, wholesaler Li Zhifu, entered the business in 2021, and now has around 2,000 workers across his production sites and more than 20 storefronts in the county.

In the beginning, Li says, almost anything sold, regardless of color or design. Competition has since squeezed profits. He estimates that six or seven out of every 10 people who entered the trade have gone out of business.

Some businesses are competing on design, selling elaborate, handmade sets for hundreds of yuan. Others are expanding overseas sales through TikTok Shop.

As overseas orders grow, Li is experimenting with machines to make nails his workers currently produce by hand.

“For large overseas orders, consistency is key. Everything, from colors and designs to rhinestone placement, has to match,” he says. He expects machine-made nails to eventually dominate that market.

(Header image: Craftswomen work in a press-on nail workshop in Donghai County, Jiangsu province, August 2026. All photos by Wu Huiyuan/Sixth Tone)