> Not sure if the nail painting itself is what women pay for when they go to a nail salon.
I thought that any type of salon was meant as a congregation point for gossip vectors to intersect and the manicurist was more of a surrogate therapist whose services must be conducted physically closer (opportunity for optional hushed tone) because the client's hand must be held thus setting the conditions for more personal conversation (mostly attentive listening) and accountability in a public location? Grooming-as-a-service is the commercialized intimate connection made as a reprieve from the cold robotic touch felt everywhere else in "civilized" society.
Afterwards, the "prepared" cuticles of a person's readily visible hand in any social situation is supposed to be an indicator (trophy? Cash to spare on something without surface level utility) that this social grooming session has occurred (and consequential fresh gossip fodder behind a tongue poised and rearing). Simultaneous (or primary) announcement that "these hands do not labor" (if she breaks one of these "expensive" nails, she can then draw attention to her role in a situation). This is similar to ancient Chinese foot binding that made it "beautiful" to be immobile and thus vulnerable - social status announcement that a wife with sufficiently warped feet cannot go anywhere on her own without service labor.
The offensive odor of nail polish solvent fumes is just as "necessary" a pain as the restriction of a corset, wrapped foot, elongated neck, or "temporary" hormonal disruption of birth control.
Perhaps the robot is meant to liberate the manicurist from an entire shift of toxic air.