Roswell location - I'm a little on the fence about this place. I went for my first visit a few weeks ago, as my usual salon was booked and I had a limited window as I was leaving town. This place happens to be close to my home, and the prices were fantastic, so I thought I'd give it a try.
I went in on a Friday morning. I don't know if that had anything to do with the overall atmosphere or not. I had a nice, young gentleman doing my service, and he was pleasant and artistic. He does a lot of nail art and hand painting, and he's clearly quite talented. However, I couldn't help but notice that all of the staff seemed very young, and the "service" portion was a little lackluster. Nobody explained any of the services and sort of expected me to know what everything was, where to go, and how it worked. Perhaps a better word would be "professionalism." There wasn't a lot of it. The vibe was SO laid back, it sort of just seemed like a group of friends chillin' out at work. I'm ok with that if the service is tremendous. I'm not sure it was tremendous. It wasn't horrible either, but nothing really blew my socks off.
For one thing, my pedicure, while pleasant, took a somewhat unhappy turn when the technician accidentally yanked off a piece of attached skin from the cuticle and caused me to bleed. Perhaps it's my paranoia, but I don't like to bleed at a nail appointment. Too many horror stories about germy tools and nasty infections. The technician didn't really seem to notice! I had to ask him, "Is that toe bleeding?" He acknowledged that it was, and he thought he was removing dead skin and it turned out it was live, attached skin. Oops! Granted, this was a mistake, and an honest one. Still, I would've felt a little better if he had shown SOME kind of concern or care regarding the situation. He sort of blew it off like it was no big deal, and that rubbed me the wrong way a bit. However, we did have a good rapport, and I decided it was best to just relax and go with it, as there was not much else I could do. I gave him a hard time about it with some gentle ribbing, and we moved on.
Next was the manicure portion of the day. I was going with a gel polish on my real nails, and he was quite skilled at it. He did a lot of hand painting and detail, which was meticulous and time-consuming, and he did a nice job. My nails looked good. However, at the end, they talked me into an embelished design on one of the nails, and to be quite honest, I didn't love it. I can't blame them for that - it was my call - but I didn't really love the finished look. Still, he put a lot of effort into it and made every attempt to make me happy. I think I would've preferred to leave it less fussy, but that was on me. On the up side, I did have some rhinestones added to the nails, and he assured me they would not peel off. He was right! They lasted forever!
At the end of the day, I paid less for all this work than I typically pay at my normal salon, which does no nail art of any kind. The work was good, and I was excited to find a place near home that actually can do true nail art! That's harder to find than it sounds! The down side was the overly laid back attitude and the "walked into a college dorm" vibe everyone gave off. Maybe Friday mornings are slow, but I expected to see people constantly manning the desk and a more professional attitude. Again, I will chalk this up to a casual Friday mood and give it another shot in the future. The skill level and prices are worth a repeat experience before making a final call. read more