A $45 FILL-IN COST ME $74. Plain gel acrylic. No designs, no nail art, no French tips, no chrome,…read moreno gems, no special shape, no massage, no scrub, no spa treatment, nothing upgraded or elaborate. This was a basic acrylic fill for short nails with one solid color. What they called a "manicure" consisted of a quick soak in plain water, pushing back cuticles, & trimming. No cuticle remover, no conditioner, no treatment. Cuticles trimmed was called a manicure and it cost $15! Not $10, but $15!
GONE IS COMPREHENSIVE FILL IN: I have been getting acrylic nails since 1990, and a fill-in has always meant maintaining the nails you already have: filling the grown-out area, shortening, shaping, filing cleaning up the cuticles, dealing with lifted or deterioration of acrylic. You went in for a fill, they maintained the nails, and you paid for a fill.One service, one price. Star Nails has taken it apart and sells you the pieces.
THE ADD-ONS. $15 to clip my cuticles, which they call a "manicure" -- a soak in plain water and clippers, no remover, no conditioner, no massage. In thirty-six years I have never been charged separately to have a "manicure" with acrylic filling. $5 to clip the ends shorter, which took two seconds. $9 in "repairs" at $3 a nail: two were broken, and the third was acrylic that had aged, which happens and was historically repaired inclusively. That is $29 on top of a $45 service, a 64.4% additional charge, and nobody mentioned any of it until I was at the register.
THE RECEIPT DOES NOT ITEMIZE IT. One number, $74.00, and nothing else. I had to ask an employee what I had just paid for and write the breakdown on the slip myself: $45 + $15 +$5 + $9. That is my handwriting in the attached photo.
THE PRICE BOARD IS NOT A PRICE LIST. All 27 items end in "& up," and the bottom says prices may vary. It is an opening bid, not a price. Those are starting numbers, not prices. The board says a fill starts at $40. Mine started at $45. So what did the posted $40 actually tell me? Nothing. When every number can go up, no ceiling is stated, and the salon decides what your particular service costs, the number on the board is meaningless as a price -- if not outright misleading to the customer standing there reading it.
WHAT $74 BOUGHT. This might be easier to swallow if the finished work were exceptional. It was not. Photos attached. 1. Look at the acrylic from the end of the thumb back toward the cuticle!!! Instead of following the natural contour of the nail, the acrylic rises into a dome, like a hat perched on a head. This is exactly why I have to remind them every visit not to make the acrylic too thick. If I do not monitor it, the nails can come out bulky, gloppy, and unnatural-looking. That should not require customer supervision. 2. Then look at the polish!!It runs onto my skin at the cuticle and past the sidewalls while failing to cover the nail evenly. The color is streaky and thin through areas of the nail, patchy toward the tips, and smeared rather than cleanly applied. There is no crisp edge.
These are short nails with one solid opaque color. No design. No French tip. No nail art. No chrome. No special shape. Nothing technically complicated. This is about as basic as acrylic nails get, and the basic application itself is sloppy. That is what makes the $74 number so ridiculous. This was not $74 because I chose elaborate artwork, long sculpted nails, specialty products, or some luxury treatment. It was $74 manipulated.
BRING A COAT. It was 79 degrees outside. I dressed for this place on purpose, layers and a heavy jacket, and shivered for ninety minutes. You cannot warm yourself up in there, because your hands are pinned in front of you the whole time. The hand rest under the lamp was ice cold. Her solution was to point a fan at me.
THE CAMERAS ARE CREEPY. Front, back, center. -- cameras everywhere. Maybe they are there to monitor the employees. Maybe they are there for security. Either way, yuck. Sitting there for ninety minutes with your hands occupied while cameras are pointed toward the service area does not feel relaxing or welcoming. It feels intrusive.
THE ONE GOOD THING. Their nails last longer than anywhere else I have gone. That is real. Durability does not outweight the negatives or make $74 for basic short acrylic nails with one plain color worth it. It does not make carving a fill into a series of extra charges worth it. It does not make a non-itemized receipt, thick acrylic, polish on my skin, uneven coverage, or ninety minutes of shivering worth it.
Thirty-six years. A fill-in used to mean a fill-in.
Summary: Between the sloppy coloring, sloppy shaping, miserable cold, nickel-and-dime pricing, and the need to monitor the work myself, the entire experience felt less like a salon appointment and more like something I simply had to endure until it was over. And after paying $74 for basic, short, one-color acrylic nails that still came out sloppy, I left feeling robbed.