Like a shiny penny. It's shiny, but at the end of the day it's still just a penny.
This has to be one of the sleekest and cleanest nail salons I've ever seen. The design layout of the place is fantastic, and they could probably do 40 pedicures at the same time with all the pedicure stations they have.
Also, the people there are very nice.
When I have to dig down and say that the people are nice and the place is clean, and then I can't thing of anything else positive to say, then you know that some bad mojo is hovering nearby.
And well, you'd be right because everything else was just awful.
This review is just about the pedicure. A lot of other reviewers talk about how great this place is for gel, acrylic, titanium, kryptonite, or whatever other types of nail coverings a person can ask for. But my friend and I just went in for a simple pedicure.
It seems pretty simple. They bring you to your pedicure station, let you sit down on the massage chair as you they put your feet in the foot tub with a whirlpool jet, let you soak your feet for a while in warm water with some sort of mystery blue water which you hope isn't toxic, they then cut your toenails, buff any calluses, deeply massage your feet and calves, use the hot stones (because they're included in the description of what you get) as a topical heat source, and then call it a day.
Well, both of the people taking care of my friend and me called it a day a whole lot earlier than that.
First, there are no massage chairs in the place. Instead, they have these weird chairs that look great and snazzy with their little throw pillows, until you actually sit down on one. And then you realize that it's kind of awkward because the front-to-back seat length is too long, so, you then realize that the little pillow is so there isn't a large gap between your lower back and the back of the chair while you're sitting in it. You also realize how much you miss the massage chair going up and down your back while your feet get tended to.
Next, they filled up the little whirlpool tub with nice and warm water but they didn't turn on the whirlpool jet until they started cutting our toenails, which was about 3 minutes later. Seriously, usually they let you soak your peds for a while before they start trimming the nails. But these ladies were all about efficiency and getting started and done as quickly as possible.
The pedicure itself was the worst I've ever had. So, I'm looking down at my toes now and thinking how the heck do my toenails look longer now than they were before I went into this place????
I do have to give her credit for picking out some toecheese that was deeply embedded in a corner of one of my toes, but that's one of the understood hazards of the job. So, I shouldn't give her too much credit.
And the massage? The best part about it was when she put that exfoliating cream on my leg and lightly spread it around. You know how you're too lazy to really put the effort into cleaning a countertop, so you just kind of spread dirt from one area of the countertop to another without actually picking up any dirt? That's the way that whole calf and foot massage thing felt: it was just superficial. I've seen traffic guards use more energy moving their hands to direct traffic than these people used on my and my friend's calves and feet.
So, the hot stones should have been great, right? Wrong. They are best used when they're hot. These were warm at best.
But the thing that really angered me was that the woman at the front desk showed me the choices for pedicures and we chose the 40-minute pedicure/massage. And then the two people working on my friend and me started and ended at the same time: total time was 20 minutes. If you clearly advertise it and then don't deliver, then you're asking for no mercy on the review.
Now, I used to date a Vietnamese nail tech, so I know how this mostly goes: the nail tech usually gets to keep 50% of the cost of the service plus tips. So, the faster they churn through a customer, the more they make. But when we went there, they were far from busy. They had extra people just hanging out waiting for people. In other words, there was no financial reason that they had to short us so badly on time.
If you've never had a great pedicure from someone who not only is careful but also has strong hands to give a fantastic calf and foot massage, then you might thing what this place offers is great. Ignorance is bliss.
But if you've had a nail technician who has grip strength sufficient to hold a Starbucks Grande, then you'll realize that the weak and superficial job they do here is incredibly substandard.
It's probably sufficient for newborns but for an adult, well, you could pretty much do the same thing when you apply soap in the shower. So, there's no chance I'm heading back there.
Yes, this place is shiny. But shiny don't mean shinnola unless it's got substance to back it, and this place doesn't have it. read more