I've been to Tinailery about five or six times, now. If you go in and get your nails done by one of the more more experienced techs, they're going to do an amazing job. The first couple times I visited, I was overjoyed with the quality of work I received. Hang and Chrissi did amazing jobs.
However, if you just go in for a regular gel manicure, you might get stuck with one of the more junior techs - one in particular whom I've been worked on twice in a row, Jodie or Judie (I'm not sure, I never actually got her name, and it's something different on VenMo.) Though sweet, she's both the slowest nail tech I've ever met, and she also can't seem to file nails in a cohesive or even shape.
The first time she worked on me, it took over two hours to do an average gel manicure, and she didn't understand what an almond shaped nail looks like. I tried corrected her shaping twice before getting embarrassed and just accepting the round shape she gave me; I proceeded to fix the shape after I got home. The manicure was weirdly lumpy.
THIS time, I went in on my lunch break because their website said it'd take 50 minutes for removal and a gel manicure. I literally had to leave, over an hour later, without even STARTING the actual polish portion of the manicure. Somehow, after an hour and ten minutes, she had only managed to (painstakingly slowly) remove my gel polish and both over-cut and misshape my nails. Even though I corrected her shaping twice, again. BONUS: I just broke two of the nails she seriously over-sanded just by lightly bumping my fingers against the faucet while going to wash my hands.
My nails are awful and brittle and BROKEN from how much they were sanded down when removing my old gel, the lengths of my nails don't match, and honestly? I'm deeply annoyed. For their prices, the work should NOT be this shoddy. The place I used to go to in Brookline that charged $20 for the same service did a better job than this. If you're going to hold yourself out as a highly specialized and professional salon, how can you hire and retain techs who can't even file nails? How are you going to let someone use the equivalent of power tools on your nails if they're going to just strip away your natural nails until they're as weak as paper?
It was nice that they offered to finish the manicure after I leave work. It WASN'T nice that the lady who offered also stared me down and pointedly asked me about how I want to tip. Twice. Kudos to me for being stupid enough to tip despite getting my nails mutilated. I can't believe I just paid $40+ to get my polish removed and my nails ruined. Woohoo.
EDIT:
I ultimately broke 3 nails between 2:30 and 5:30pm. Instead of having them finish the manicure when I went back in, I requested a refund because my evened-out nails would be way too short to look decent and I didn't want to deal with acrylics or anything like that. They were reluctant, but they ultimately granted the refund, for which I'm grateful.
Most of my nails feel incredibly brittle though, so I think I'm going to take a break from manicures for a while. I had to cut all my nails down almost to the quick because a few others felt like they were on the verge of snapping too.
EDIT EDIT (11/26/19):
I've broken 4 more nails in less than 3 weeks, some of them more than once, even while rubbing strengthening serums and what-have-you all over my nails every other day. That's 7/10 fingers. Before the above session, my nails almost never broke. That is all. read more