I'm sitting here reading all of these Groupon reviews and honestly, I'm surprised that these reviews are real. I've been living a block away from Serenity Spa for over 2 years and originally started going to a place much closer to my apartment, but had the "WORST" experience there 2 times too many and have never returned.
Who I am... I'm the girl with the gel manicure and pedicure that I maintain every 2 weeks all year long. I cannot paint my own nails, when I do.. it looks like a bad Jackson Pollock painting or that of a 3 year old with marks everywhere and etc. You get the point. I'm very particular about my nails, they grow fast and I'm in a profession that I work in the Fashion/Cosmetics Industry and require to look "maintained" and personally, it's that one thing that I do for myself.
By this point, I've most likely had everyone in the spa work on my nails. I've had some good and not so good experiences, where my gel polish chipped off; however, I stopped by the next day and they completely fixed them for free.. no questions asked. They use high end products- Essie/OPI & with gel, I ONLY use CND Shellac, as OPI has ruined my nails & never been a good experience in gel for me.
I cannot lie that I do have some favorite people (Kinji, York, Ara, Lisa, and more) that work here that I prefer over others, but I've had overall good experiences. Some people take longer to work on your nails vs. others, but if you are on a time constraint of 30 minutes, maybe you should wait until you have more time.
They do a great job with my nails, feet, and the massages are awesome. (York rocks!)
I used to go to a very expensive high end spa for my waxing *brazilian and eye brows, but tried their Tuesday Waxing Special, it's so much off, or on Groupon now, I get $20 for $40 of waxing which is a deal). My experience from some of the "high" end "Waxing ONLY" spa's in the city, I would end up with ingrown hair issues and some sales pitch on products, packages and ALWAYS bought something with pressure and walked out paying almost $200 and feeling like they not only took my hair, but stole my dignity with it.
Now, I do my waxing here as well. They don't "double dip", they break up the sticks and you will see them tossing them each time.When getting a brazilian and showing someone all of my modesty it is uncomfortable enough, but what they also do (which no high end place has done for me) is after your wax, they go back with tweezers to get any ingrown hairs that could flare up or cause an issue. I've NEVER had an ingrown hair down there again with a wax, since coming here.:)
I've gone to a lot of spa's locally as well, some very high end and have had less attention to detail and had my nails break, chip and peel the next day and nail polish peel off.
With this being said, I've been coming to Serenity every other week for awhile and they know me, some know my name, others just smile and always talk to me. I've witnessed some people coming there for the first time be completely rude to the people working, I've witnessed some terrible behavior and never was it acceptable. I've seen a lot in my time sitting there.
Most of the people that come here are regulars and live in the neighborhood, and after awhile, you start recognizing them as well.
In my 2 years of coming here, I've sat next to a few celebrities, on more than on one occasion and still see them regularly getting their nail's done. The point is, if they're regular's... how is this place getting such low reviews? odd.
Nail places are small.. We live in Manhattan, space is limited and they do tend to use the space and try to maximize it with fitting people into the area. Yes, they do have people working with fake nail's, tip's or whatever they're called, but I've only seen them on rare occasion.
Maybe because I'm loyal to this place, I get great service, but seriously...they were great to me from the start and I am always nice.
They also have a membership program, you pay $10 and they give you points for each dollar that spend to redeem for free services (spa pkgs, massage, mani/pedi/facials/wax & etc).
To the people ranting about having to pay tax/tip on a groupon, where in the hell have you been? I'm an AVID Groupon purchaser as well, everything from massages to high end dinners and etc. It even says when you purchase that you know it doesn't cover tax/tip...we live in NYC... you should know everything has a tax on it, if you don't intend on tipping someone for a service, do your nails at home yourself. That is common knowledge in our society to tip on services and you are supposed to tip on the actual amount that you would've paid, not the amount that you paid for the groupon. It even says that on the groupon when you purchase it. read more