5 /5 Maha Kaissi: UPDATE #2: The owner was out of town, so he called me today. He was very kind and apologetic. He offered to have my nails re-done as a complimentary service. Jessica did my nails today, and they look great! Reflected change to 5 Stars for the excellent nails and customer service.
UPDATE: still no response from the salon, and the thumb dip officially came off on its own this morning 10 days after.
I got a manicure done with dip on my natural nails on 12/18. I had a new nail tech who I had never seen at the salon before named Cherry. She immediately began by commenting that she could add nail art with palm trees for my upcoming vacation (she overheard me telling the front desk person that I would be going on vacation in a few weeks), but I declined saying it would look odd to have palm trees over Christmas when my vacation wasn’t going to be for a couple of weeks after. She then began taking off my old dip manicure to prep for my new one. As opposed to the usual way they remove the dip at this salon (I’ve been coming every 3-4 weeks for months now), she kept having me soak/rub remover onto the nail for 1-2 minutes, then remove my hands to file more off. I thought it was odd since I’ve never had my dip taken off this way (typically I soak for about 10 minutes while rubbing my nails with the paper inside). Eventually they were cleaned and polish-free. Then began the cuticle removal.
I never ask for extended cuticle removal as I personally think it’s bad for your nail health. I’ve also never had anyone at this salon do it before or even offer it. Cherry began removing my excess cuticle, but then she kept nipping too close to my nail bed, even to the point that she mentioned how I kept flinching/pulling my hand back. I was about to say something, but then it was already over.
She then painted the nails with the dip powder as usual. However, she again kept going on and on about adding nail art even though I already declined. So I again refused. At this point, it was already over an hour that she had been doing my nails, which was atypically long for anyone else I’ve had at the salon.
Finally, I went to check out and was told by Cherry that I was being charged $10 extra for the “extended cuticle removal”, which I never even wanted! I just paid it to get out of there.
3 days after, one of the dip nails already chipped. Now 1 week after, two of the dips are lifting off the nail! Normally, my nails could even last 4 weeks without budging at all. I called the salon to discuss once my nail chipped and that I never wanted to have Cherry do my nails again, but all they said was that they would add to my profile that Cherry shouldn’t do my nails. I sadly wasn’t even offered a chance to have the nail fixed or an apology.
I have never had a bad experience here, so I think this is why I was especially shocked. As I have seen many different people here and have only had this one bad experience, I think I can attribute it to Cherry and just won’t see her again. However, I would have loved to have gotten at least an apology. I’ll have to decide what I want to do about my nails (since there’s no way they’ll last through my vacation at this point).