Nail salon owners make and donate face masks as service to community

The doors of PK Nails in Horseshoe Bay are closed, but owners Paul and Kylie Nguyen have stayed busy making and distributing hundreds of masks a day to protect people from the spread of COVID-19. They also have three small children to home school.

“We do this for free,” Paul said. “We don’t take money. Whoever needs masks can call us, and we give to them. We are happy to do this.”

The Nguyens are naturalized American citizens from South Vietnam. Now Marble Falls residents, they opened their Horseshoe Bay business in 2018. A big fan of the salon, Linda Baker of Horseshoe Bay said it has a regular and devoted clientele.

“Paul and Kylie are such good people,” she said. “When I offered to pay for masks, Kylie refused. She told me if she made masks and sold them to make money that it would undo what God wants her to do.”

Kylie has made masks — complete with filters — for all Walmart employees, First State Bank of Burnet, the Horseshoe Bay Police Department, several nursing homes, and countless friends and their families.

The Nguyens have delivered masks when they can or given out their address so people could pick them up in front of the house. They also post on the salon’s Facebook page, @PKNailsandSpa, the design of the day and when the new masks will be ready for pickup. Usually by 5 p.m., a new batch of masks, each one neatly tucked into a plastic baggy, will be set out on a table outside of the salon at 7405 FM 2147.

Members of St. Paul the Apostle Catholic Church in Horseshoe Bay, the Nguyens see their mission as threefold: to serve God, their community, and their fellow Americans. 

“We do this for the people,” Paul said. “We believe in this country. This is our home. I want to protect this country, and I want us to get back to normal again.”

suzanne@thepicayune.com