Hood called the coming change to gel manicures last year. Now, as new TPO rules put what goes into our manicure under fresh scrutiny, we meet Nicola Valente, the luxury fashion insider bringing a more considered approach to nails at Edinburgh’s Combined.

Back in our Festive 2025 issue, Hoodreported that gel manicures were facing increased scrutiny. The EU were set to ban TPO, an ingredient commonly used to help gel products cure, and while Great Britain had yet to follow suit, we suggested it was worth knowing which system your salon used.

Less than a year later, that conversation has arrived here.

On 15th August, new rules concerning TPO came into force in Great Britain. Despite some fairly excitable talk of a “gel nail ban”, gel manicures themselves aren’t disappearing. The regulation concerns one ingredient, a photoinitiator used in some gel products to help them cure under UV or LED light.

Nor is this a reason to panic about every gel manicure we’ve had until now. The regulatory change followed TPO’s classification as a substance toxic for reproduction, but the industry has stressed the distinction between a substance’s potential hazard and the risk posed by the very small quantities previously used in nail products.

What the headlines have done is make us considerably more interested in what is in the little bottle.

Which is why, when we heard about a nail specialist arriving at Edinburgh’s Combined. who uses Bio Sculpture, we wanted to know more.

FROM CASHMERE TO CUTICLES

Nicola Valente isn’t taking the conventional route into the nail industry. A Heriot-Watt graduate in Design for Textiles, specialising in knitwear, she has spent the past few years working for some serious names in luxury fashion, including Johnstons of Elgin, Bamford and Barrie Knitwear.

Her career has taken her through knitwear product development, design and, latterly, product management. In other words, she has spent years thinking about materials, construction, finish and what separates a good product from a great one.

Now she is applying much the same scrutiny to manicures.

Nails by Valente is now based at Combined. in Edinburgh’s Canonmills, where Nicola will specialise in Bio Sculpture prescriptive manicures.

And “prescriptive” is the interesting bit.

Rather than assuming every client’s nails require the same treatment, Bio Sculpture allows the base to be selected according to the type and condition of the natural nail. Nicola can therefore assess what is in front of her and tailor the manicure accordingly.

It is skincare logic, essentially, applied to your fingertips.

THE NO-BULK MANICURE

Anyone who has ever watched their builder manicure become progressively more substantial will appreciate another part of Nicola’s philosophy: no bulk.

The idea isn’t simply to use less product. It is to put the structure in the right place. Bio Sculpture Builder Gel can be used to create the upper arch and correctly positioned apex, the subtle high point that gives the nail support, while maintaining a remarkably thin finish. The brand describes its Builder Gel as providing an “ultrathin yet strong” application.

The result is intended to look less like something sitting on top of the nail and more like an enhanced version of the nail itself.

There is also a difference in what happens when you return. Nicola fully removes her previous manicure rather than repeatedly infilling it, using cuticle oil and conditioning products as part of the process. Once the product is off, she can see the natural nail again and reassess it. If its condition has improved or changed, the base and builder she prescribes can change too.

That last part is important. A manicure designed to support healthier natural nails should, theoretically, have to evolve if it is doing its job.

Bio Sculpture itself is far from a new response to the TPO headlines. The South African company has been developing professional nail systems for decades and describes BioGel as the original professional soak-off nail enhancement system. Its current UK range includes more than 400 colours and is advertised as both TPO and HEMA-free.

Its Builder Gel is also fibre-infused, soakable and HEMA-free, with the company recommending different applications depending on the strength and flexibility of the natural nail.

In other words, the colour might be the thing you notice, but it isn’t necessarily where the interesting work is happening.

THE NEW NAIL APPOINTMENT

Perhaps that is the more interesting legacy of this summer’s TPO story. We have become remarkably knowledgeable about what goes on our faces. We discuss retinoids, peptides and acids over dinner and scrutinise skincare ingredient lists in a way that would have seemed faintly unhinged a decade ago. Yet many of us have been wearing cured gel on our fingertips almost continuously without asking nearly as many questions.

That may be changing.

Nicola’s arrival at Combined. feels particularly well timed because her approach is less about abandoning the gel manicure than becoming a little more discerning about it. What is being used? Why that particular base? How much product is actually necessary? And, most importantly, what does the natural nail look like underneath?

Combined. itself is home to a collective of independent beauty specialists at 1 Canon Street, with treatments spanning nails, skin, brows, lashes and make-up. Nicola’s Bio Sculpture Prescriptive Gel Manicure is priced at £52, while the Prescriptive Builder Gel Manicure is £58.

There is something rather fitting about a former luxury knitwear product manager becoming fascinated by the architecture of a fingernail. Nicola has simply swapped fibres, yarns and garment construction for bases, builders and apexes. The obsession with materials and finish remains.

And after a year in which the contents of our manicure have finally become news, knowing exactly what is going onto our nails suddenly seems rather less niche.

The colour, thankfully, can still be the fun bit

Gel Manicures, Reconsidered: The Edinburgh Nail Expert Taking A More Considered Approach