Beauty salon sparks huge backlash after putting live fish into a false nail

A nail salon has been accused of animal cruelty after it posted a clip that appeared to show live fish being inserted into false nails.

Russian salon, Nail Sunny, posted the footage on their Instagram page with 2.1 million followers, showing a nail technician creating a look called the “the aquarium”.

For the “look”, live fish are inserted into the nail to create the aquarium effect.

The now-deleted clip showed a regular nail being prepared and painted with silver glitter polish before an acrylic tube was attached to the nail.

A live orange and blue fish was then taken from a tank of five other fish and put into the tiny tube on the tip of the nail along with a small amount of water.

@nail_sunny/Instagram

The fish, which barely had any room to move in the small vessel, was placed back into the tank shortly after, but it didn’t stop the company from receiving criticism for the stunt.

One person wrote: “I really enjoy watching these videos but for real this was just too much.”

Another Instagram user replied: “So they were bought just to be traumatised then returned because they had no more use to you. You’re out of your mind if you think that this is OK.”

Someone else said: “Even for fun, it’s not cool.”

Thankfully, it seems the stunt is not a service actually offered to customers but the company attempted to defend itself from the backlash, writing on Instagram that the fish “were not harmed” and were “returned to the pet store”.