I went in today for a simple manicure and pedicure with regular polish because I'm growing my nails…read moreout. Unfortunately, the experience left me disappointed, and I don't think I'll be returning.
The manicure was okay. It was pretty quick, but the polish was applied evenly and I was happy with it. Nothing spectacular, but nothing bad either.
The pedicure, however, was a completely different experience.
The technician was an older lady, and from the beginning I could tell she was having some difficulty with the polish. Her hands seemed noticeably shaky, and although she was trying, the application on several of my toes was not clean. **Two of my toenails in particular looked really bad after the first application. The polish was uneven and messy, the edges weren't clean, and it looked like the nails had not been properly finished. There was polish where it shouldn't have been, and the overall application looked sloppy rather than like a finished professional pedicure.**
I was sitting there looking at my toes thinking, *There is no way I'm supposed to walk out of here with my toes looking like this.*
I was also concerned because she didn't use toe separators. Since I specifically chose regular polish rather than gel, I knew the polish would need time to dry, and without separators I was worried that my toes would touch each other and mess up the polish. Thankfully, they didn't end up rubbing together.
The technician did end up having to redo the problem areas on my toes. That helped, but the fact that they needed to be redone in the first place was frustrating, especially after already sitting through the service.
I'll be posting pictures of **the first attempt and what I was apparently expected to leave the salon with**, because honestly, the pictures tell the story better than I can. If I hadn't said anything, I would have been walking out with two toes that looked noticeably unfinished and poorly painted.
The massage itself was fine, and I don't want to say the entire pedicure was terrible because there were parts that were perfectly fine. But for a professional salon service, I expect the polish application to look clean and finished, especially when I'm paying full price.
And then came the payment situation.
While I was sitting in the chair waiting for my regular polish to dry, I was asked if I wanted to pay. I said sure. I was then told they only accept cash, Venmo, or Zelle.
I chose Zelle because I have it and have used it to pay businesses before. However, when I entered the phone number they gave me, the recipient came up as **"Ricky" instead of the business name**. I specifically said, "It says Ricky, not T Nails." I was told, essentially, that yes, that was correct.
That really threw me off. I've paid businesses through Zelle before, and the payment information has been connected to the business. Having the payment come up under what appeared to be a personal name made me uncomfortable.
Then I was told the total was **$65 for the manicure and pedicure**.
At that point, I was honestly pretty frustrated. I had already been there close to two hours, the pedicure had to be corrected because two of the toenails were poorly done initially, and I was still charged the full $65 without any sort of courtesy adjustment.
I wasn't expecting the entire service to be free. But given that there was a noticeable problem with the pedicure and I had to have part of the service redone, I expected at least a small discount -- even $5 would have shown some acknowledgment of the inconvenience.
I've been to other salons where, if there was even a slight problem with a service, they would remove the affected service from the bill or offer some kind of adjustment. So I was surprised that there was no attempt to do anything here.
The salon itself was clean, but very plain, and there were only two people there during my visit. The actual service was okay overall, but it was not spectacular, and the problems with the pedicure combined with the payment situation really left a bad impression.
**The biggest issue for me wasn't that the service wasn't perfect. It was that I was presented with a visibly poor first attempt on two of my toenails, had to have them redone, waited nearly two hours for the entire appointment, was charged the full $65, and was then asked to send the payment through Zelle to someone named "Ricky" rather than the business.**
I'll post the pictures of my toes from the first attempt so people can see exactly what I mean. **Look at the photos and judge for yourself whether that is how a paying customer should be expected to leave a salon.**
Just be forewarned.
