My friend and I bought a buywithme deal together for Daryl Christopher (massage, facial, and mani/pedi) and one for our other friend as a birthday present.
To sum up:
-good luck finding this place
-steer clear of older brunette at front desk
-staff could communicate better
-sanitary, but could use more frequent tidying
-treatments not worth full price or the drive
First, THIS PLACE IS NOT EASY TO FIND. I am not at all surprised to see that MANY other reviews (even positive ones) say this. You might think the salon would A. update the website directions to say something a little more clear than "turn on the 3rd street," or B. ADMIT they are hard to find! When I casually mentioned to staff that they were kind of hard to find, no one acknowledged it. Secondly, just know that my party was LATE. I completely admit it.
We noticed we were getting lost, so we called the salon to say we would be 15 min late (arriving right at 10am). They'd asked us to arrive at 9:45am, 15 min early for our appointment--understandable. Whoever answered the phone didn't know how to look up appointments and was very confused by us calling.
When we finally arrived at 10:20 (I admit, much later than we predicted due to the difficult location of the salon and a whack GPS) they were unhappy with us, even though my friends and I walked in very apologetic. The blonde at the front desk was polite, but it was clear that she was the one who had answered the phone because she also didn't know what to do when we walked in. After we apologized for being late and gave her our names, she called over an older brunette woman with glasses, who was positively nasty to us. The brunette was completely unwelcoming, scolded us for being late, and was unclear about what we were supposed to do next. She hinted that our massages would be cut short, but still no clear options or directions. I asked her to clarify our options: I mean what else might we do but take a shorter massage, I said I didn't really want to reschedule because I wasn't going to drive out there again. This pissed her off even more. The brunette said we could get a 30 min massage rather than 50 min. We were totally okay with this, as we WERE late, but a little ruffled by her demeanor and tone with us.
Finally, in the waiting area, the manager approached us. This woman was very nice and had a much better response to our profuse apologies for being late. The manager said that we had some "new client" paperwork to fill out, and by the time we were done with that and got changed for the massage table, it would hardly be worth it. She persuaded us to skip the massage for the day. I asked her if we'd lose the service, or if we might be able to reschedule. She said it was not their policy to reschedule late clients who paid with buywithme coupons, but she'd see what she could do. Her tone definitely made us feel more okay with giving up the massage. I said we completely understood, because we were late, so that was that. But she never got back to us about "seeing what she could do" even though were were there for another 3 hours.
Without the massage, we had time to kill before our facials, so we sat in the waiting area for 25 minutes. It was nice that they had snacks and refreshments, but there were dirty glasses and trash on the tables. No visible trashcan, so I assumed staff were supposed to clean it up but no one did. While we were waiting, the massage therapists showed up looking for us. This was awkward, because we had to apologize for being late and explain that the manager had suggested we wouldn't have enough time, so we had decided to skip massages. The staff could have communicated much better so we'd avoid that conversation. Also, this could be personal preference, but I might have been uncomfortable with a male massage therapist, especially on the older side (2/3 were male, one older). I was a bit relieved to miss it.
Then we went in for our facials, which were just okay. I had Robin, who was very nice and polite and did a nice neck/shoulder and arm massage. As expected, she lectured me about my skin and tried to sell me products "that would really help" but she didn't push too hard. I've had enough facials to know that salon products are usually a rip-off and there are cheaper treatments out there that are more relaxing. But maybe I was just extra stressed about being late and getting lost.
The best of our treatments were the mani/pedis. Both were up to par for anything you might get in Boston for the same price. The manicurists were very sweet and good at small talk, but not annoyingly. However, I wouldn't trek out there just for the mani/pedi.
We happened to be there on a day when they have a complimentary makeup service. We did it, and it was nice, but a little much.
I don't see any reason to come here again. Buywithme served its purpose: we saved $126 (with tip and without the massage) and we got to try a new place, which obviously needs buywithme deals for business. read more
