Nail Painting Robot: From Hand Manicures to ABB Arms

A nail painting robot is now taking appointments inside an Ulta Beauty store in Clark, New Jersey. A manicure takes a steady hand, a feel for skin and a lot of patience, so it is a fair test of how far robot dexterity has come. This post covers how nails were done by hand, how the first nail machines tried to copy that work, and what robotic manicure kiosks do today. It also looks at where ABB robots such as the GoFa and the IRB 1200 could fit, and what still stands in the way in homes and in shops.

A manicurist works on a client at a Washington salon in 1942. Photo: Marjory Collins / Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

From cuticle remover to the salon table

Modern nail care began as a small chemical business. Northam Warren launched Cutex cuticle remover in 1911, so women could tidy their nails without cutting or scraping. Colourless liquid polish joined the Cutex line around 1916 or 1917, and by 1930 Cutex was the best selling nail polish in the United States. Each manicure was still pure craft. The manicurist soaked, pushed back, filed and painted every nail in turn, and the result depended on her hands and her eye.

Former servicewomen learn manicure techniques around a practice hand in 1945. Photo: John F. Mailer / Wikimedia Commons (public domain)

Colour arrived in the 1930s. Revlon introduced its long lasting nail enamel in 1932, in pinks and reds aimed at a mass market, and rivals such as Glazo sold bottled polish with a separate remover. Photographs from the 1940s show how routine the trade had become: a manicurist at work in a Washington salon in 1942, and a group of former servicewomen gathered around a practice hand in 1945 to learn the technique. The skill was taught by watching and repeating, which is exactly why it is hard to hand to a machine.

A Glazo liquid nail polish bottle and remover from the 1930s. Photo: Joe Haupt / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Automation entered slowly, and mostly at the edges. Salons added UV and LED lamps to cure gel polish and airbrush rigs for nail art, but a person still held the brush. The first real attempt to remove the person came in 2021, when Nimble, a company founded in 2016 by Omri Moran and two cofounders, put a small desktop device on Kickstarter. It scanned each nail in 3D, and a tiny arm applied a base coat, two colour coats and a top coat, with warm air drying each layer. One hand took about ten minutes.

A nail technician at work in a salon, the routine a manicure machine has to match. Photo: PattayaPatrol / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

A manicure robot in an Ulta store

The recent news is a step up from a desktop gadget. In October 2026 a robotic manicure machine from the Boston company 10Beauty opened at an Ulta Beauty in Clark, New Jersey, according to Hoodline and NJBIZ. The machine handles polish removal, shaping, cuticle care, colour, top coat and drying, and it uses a single use pod for each manicure. Reports differ on how long a session takes and what it costs, with prices quoted at roughly $25 to $30. NJBIZ adds that a second New Jersey site is planned for December.

Hand painted nail art on long nails, the kind of detail a machine must reproduce. Photo: E911a / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Where does ABB fit? No source says ABB builds or supplies these machines, so any link is a possibility only. The ingredients are familiar, though. A nail machine needs a small arm that repeats a path to a fraction of a millimetre, and the ABB IRB 1200 does that kind of fast, compact work in factories. For a robot working close to a person, the GoFa CRB 15000 is the nearer match, because it stops when it senses contact and can be taught by guiding it with a hand.

An ABB GoFa CRB 15000 cobot at a work table. Photo: ABB

Skin is the hard part, and safety software matters as much as the arm. A polish brush that drifts a few millimetres ends up on a fingertip. ABB's SafeMove limits speed and zones for robots that share space with people, and the same idea would apply to a manicure bay. Colour is another problem, since a shop carries hundreds of shades. Engineers who build cells like this usually test reach and paths in a simulator such as RobotStudio before they tune the motion on a real arm.

Rows of polish bottles on a store display, hundreds of shades a robot has to handle. Photo: Joe Shlabotnik / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0)

What comes next for robotic manicures

For shops, the pitch is consistency and speed. A machine can paint every nail the same way at any hour, which frees a technician for nail art and care that still needs a human touch. Demand is the open question. Many customers go to a salon for the conversation and the hand massage as much as for the polish, and a kiosk in a beauty store sells something different: a quick, fixed menu of services with no chat attached. The Clark machine and the December site will show whether shoppers treat a machine manicure as a convenience or a novelty.

A salon visit is also a chat between customer and technician. Photo: Olgatladi2020 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

For homes, the target is cost and simplicity. Nimble launched at a price in the hundreds of dollars, with polish capsules sold separately, which is a lot for a gadget used for a few minutes a week. A home robot also has to cope with every hand shape without making a mess on the sofa. If prices fall, a machine that finishes a manicure in the time of a short video could sit next to the hair dryer. Our post on ABB robots in beauty and cosmetics covers the factory side of the trade.

Lead-through teaching: moving an ABB GoFa arm by hand. Photo: ABB

Skills matter on both sides. Technicians will have to load pods, clean machines and step in when a scan fails, and engineers need people who understand nails as well as motion paths. Safety rules for devices that touch skin, and hygiene rules between customers, are still being worked out. Anyone curious how arms like these get programmed can start with our overview of ABB robot use cases. A manicure is a useful reminder that small, careful tasks are among the hardest ones for robots.

The new generation ABB IRB 1200, a compact six axis arm for fast small part work. Photo: ABB

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