I had purchased a Groupon for a shellac manicure. I booked an appointment over the phone. The woman on the other line was thorough, indicating the various charges for removing shellac polish off my nails, the Groupon does not cover tax, and more. She was also great in texting me a day before my appointment, providing a pleasant reminder of my appointment.
The salon is located on the southwest corner of Eglinton Avenue East and Bayview Avenue. I decided to park across the street at the Metro, where there is plenty of parking.
Due to the Crosstown transit construction taking place, it took me longer than I had anticipated to figure out where the front door was. I found it, which was behind all the construction fences that were set up.
I was greeted promptly by both the person working at the front counter and the nail technician. They were kind. They offered me a cup of green tea.
I had a wonderful conversation with Kasia, who worked on my nails. I learned so much about myself and shellac manicures.
She noticed that I am warm-blooded and that my cuticles are close to my nails. As a result, when she trimmed one of my cuticles with a fairly sophisticated cuticle clipper, my baby finger bled a bit, but it didn't hurt. She also noticed that I have a high pain threshold, which is true.
We talked about her issues with her iPhone. We tried troubleshooting it together.
She taught me so much about shellac manicures. The best thing is to file down your nails that have shellac (gel) polish, as it won't chip as much. I took her advice and she was absolutely right.
She also recommended that I apply a base coat twice. My nails had a bit of staining from red polish that I had applied weeks before my visit.
I went with a pink polish. It looked nice once Kasia was done. She admitted that the colour suited me.
My Groupon also included a paraffin wax and massage on my hands. It felt so good.
I don't know what happened, but I managed to cut my finger and it started to bleed as I was about to head out the door. It's a good thing that I was still at the salon. Kasia managed to stop the bleeding and provided a small bandage on it. I was thankful. It is also tricky to put a bandage on nicely moisturized hands.
I had an excellent experience here. I was also asked to take some Belgian chocolates from the bowl. I hope to come back here again. My nail polish lasted for well over a month, which was impressive. I wanted to test out how long I could go with my polish growing out.
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