Review: TV Guide's Nail Files a perfect summer reality series

By April MacIntyre Jun 13, 2011, 0:01 GMT

She found a real star with The Painted Nail\'s Katie Cazorla, a chick from Elmira Heights, New York that is the dame of the digits in the toney part of the San Fernando Valley that hugs the mountains.

Boyz in the Hood have the barber shop. Rich old white guys have the bar at the country club and women, regardless of socio-economic groupings, we have the nail salon, the bastion of peace and freedom from male ears judging us if we talk too much or too loudly, or laugh too much at the craziness of our everyday lives.

Even in this crap economy, the nail salon is the affordable luxury that women will not sacrifice.  It is our mental safety pressure valve and hour of pampering that restores us to feeling like girls again, for as long as that mani / pedi looks fresh and fabulous and our heels smooth and uncalloused.

This fact was not lost on reality savant and producer SallyAnn Salsano (Jersey Shore, Dance Your Ass Off, Design Star, Nashville Star, Repo Games and many more), a vivacious breath of fresh air in her own right who has crazy mad skills in divining 
personalities that pop on camera.

photo by April MacIntyre ©M&C

She found a real star with The Painted Nail's owner Katie Cazorla, a chick from Elmira Heights, New York who is the Dame of the digits in the toney part of the San Fernando Valley that hugs the mountains.

Nail Files will debut on TV Guide Network on June 21 at 10 PM E/P.

Katie is an "it" girl, and her business and life are worthy of your guilty pleasure summer viewing in a fun show that is a balance of chick-centric mayhem and real life unscripted drama that I cannot give away.  The first episode will have you on the edge of your seat.

"I love a mani / pedi more than life," laughed SallyAnn, who met me at Katie's cocoon of lavender and white salon, The Painted Nail, in Sherman Oaks last, week.  She was  selecting her newest reds with glitter for her nails. "People who don't like glitter can f*ck off," laughed SallyAnn, as we discussed the "Viva Glitter" ethos that exists in this very hip salon that celebrates shiny, happy, pretty and over-the-top girliness.

Katie meets us and begins her animated retelling of the fateful "moment" that happens in episode one, while filming en route to the airport that was still 
fresh in her mind. "Let me tell you something it was crazy," Katie says. "The producer was sweating, the driver's shirt was soaked, and it gets worse...the people who have seen episode one are dying to see episode two!"

In a two month period, Cazorla's life was 24/7 with Salsano's 495 production crew taping her dawn to dusk routine, and you will meet everyone in Katie's world, including her Grammy-winning record producer fiancé Walter Afanasieff, who she tells me, is going to marry her after deflecting the ceremony talk for years, having gone through a divorce. "You are the first person I am telling this," she says, "but Walter wants to get married..." and by season 2, Katie may well be a married lady.  Salsano committed her beloved party planner Jim to attend to the details.

"We shot all day everyday for two months," says Katie, as SallyAnn was quick to add that with well produced reality shows, "you understand, real life doesn't take a break right?...In Katie's life, there is always something major happening, something dramatic and that's just on a Wednesday; stuff always happens in the salon or at her home."

Katie did cede that the show appeals to women, who are "pumped about the show," but fears that regular dudes will think this is going to be about "nail polish drying."

"When men ask me about the show, they're like, 'is this like the Jersey Shore?' and I am like, 'no, here in LA, not tanning, I'm not having randoms in a hot tub! But once they see the pilot, they get it, and they like it, plus that thing that happens has everyone talking at the end of it."

Stars love the private party room that Katie has tricked out with a karaoke stage and mani-pedi stations, and while I was there Lisa Rinna booked her daughter Delilah's birthday party, as Katie dished, "Delilah has a little girl crush on my boyfriend! On Walter, every time she sees Walter; she's like, 'Hi Walter'!!" 

So how did the girl from Elmira Heights, New York, a place SallyAnn was quick to inform me was "best known for its prison facility" get to be such a commodity with the celebrity cool set she counts as regulars?

Once upon a time, Katie had a manicure, and it was not a good experience.  She went to nail school and then used every cent she had to open her own salon on a vibrant stretch of Ventura that has a lot of nice cafes and interesting stores.

The Painted Nail was feng shui-ed in a clean white shabby chic, overstuffed comfortable environment with free drinks offered and pumping music, and soon the energetic vibe was drawing in the studio people and their famous friends.

Within six months of opening her nail bar, Katie took over the building next door and launched a popular clothing boutique and a nail-themed party lounge.  She recently launched her own branded nail polish line and is busy planning to open franchises in Hollywood, Las Vegas and London.  She recently added a hair salon onto her growing one-woman empire. Katie is truly “The Queen of Nails.” 

And her Walter, who is 20 years Katie’s senior, has produced some of the biggest pop hits of all time including Mariah Carey’s “Hero,” “My Heart Will Go On,” from the movie “Titanic,” and “A Whole New World” from the Disney classic, “Aladdin.” 

In addition to Carey, Walter has produced hit songs and albums for artists Celine Dion, Barbra Streisand, Michael Bolton, Josh Groban, and Leona Lewis, but claims Katie is the biggest hit that’s come into his life. 

He is also an honorary employee of “The Painted Nail,” as Katie delighted in telling me Walter was her best janitor ever. "He loves to clean all the time!" 

Enter 495 Productions and SallyAnn Salsano, taking this show to Diane Robina at TV Guide Network - who fell in love with the premise - especially for a summer original series.

Eight episodes later, Katie Cazorla may well become the Rachael Ray of nails and glitterized glamour.

Fun show; give this one your time for summer TV watching. If you are a local in LA, visit The Painted Nail and see Tigra, who gave me the best manicure I ever had.