Nail technician Jacqui Jefford, at her Salisbury salon Split and Polish. DA5278P1Lesley Bates talks to a woman who has nailed the art of manicures and now has her sights set on the Olympics.

MOST Olympic competitors have their sights set firmly on Athens this summer. Not Jacqui Jefford - she just can't wait to get her claws stuck into the competition in Las Vegas.

The American city is hosting the Nail Olympics next month and Jacqui will be there, hoping to add to her gold and silver medals for nail art and airbrushing won in 2002.

After that, she goes straight to Slovenia to judge a nail competition and her feet will barely touch the ground before she moves on to Dublin.

In between, she finds time to run Milford Street salon Split 'n' Polish, the Creative Nail Academy in Cherry Orchard Lane, which trains 500 students a year, and be one of the nail art and design directors (with her friend and colleague Sue Marsh) of the Untouchables, the London-based nail agency that is a must-have addition on every fashion magazine's shooting itinerary.

Jacqui (45), who lives in Alderholt, is philosophical about her work-load.

"I had possibly one day off in March and it will stay like that until the end of May," she says.

"It's been fantastic, but really crazy.

"You think life will get easier but it doesn't happen."

She has just accepted an invitation to go to the first ever Slovenian Fashion Week in September, so there is no immediate slowdown in prospect. Her work has featured on the front covers of the likes of Vogue, trade magazines regard her as an industry icon and she is a familiar figure behind the scenes of catwalk shows including the high profile London Fashion Week.

Celebrity clients include Belinda Carlisle, Kate Moss, Jodie Kidd, Geri Halliwell, Sophia Loren and Boy George.

Jacqui has been finalist as Nail Technician of the Year for the last two years and has just walked off with the top prize in the Fantasy Nail Art category in the NEC's British Beauty Nail Competition.

She has co-authored four books including the best-selling Nail Encyclopaedia and the latest, The Nail Style Book, a fully illustrated coffee table style book written with Sue aimed at the trade, magazine editors, make-up artists and stylists, which she hopes will become a bi-annual publication.

It was a move to the far from fashionable Brecon Beacons with her husband that set London-based nail-biter Jacqui on course to the cutting edge of fingertip glamour.

"I've been having my nails done since I was 16, but when I moved to the Brecon Beacons 20 years ago, I found no one did nails.

"Luckily, before I left the girl who had done my nails in London, Janet Thomas, trained me to do my own nails."

The mother of four started a dress hire business and before long her nails got noticed and she found herself doing the nails of the frock-hirers.

When her husband was posted to Larkhill, the family moved here and she concentrated on steadily building up her nail business.

Now at her peak professionally, bringing on the next generation of nail techs is her overwhelming passion. As well as running her own nail academy, she has been a visiting lecturer at Salisbury College and Morley College for many years, teaching on the Beauty Therapy NVQ course.

For a number of years she has been working with the Hair and Beauty Industry Association to develop an NVQ for nail technicians that will operate as a standalone qualification, removed from the beauty therapy umbrella.

"Before it was always beauty therapy people who did nails - now there are many career routes for nail technicians," she says.

The nail-specific NVQ has just been approved and she is delighted.

"The nail industry has grown up, left its teens and come of age. There are eight units which can be done progressively or as individual units for those who want to add to their qualifications.

"There is even a unit for our little Saturday girls of 14 -16 to do."

The Nail Style Book by the Untouchables is published by Beauty and Health Publishing Ltd, price £19.95.