Adventures in a Nail Salon

The first time I got a manicure was on my 22nd birthday. I was hooked from that moment on. Never in my life had I seen polish on my nails that wasn't lumpy, chipped, or all over my fingers like a four year old attempted to paint them. For a reasonably priced $8, I could have someone cut and file my nails, clean up my cuticles, rub my hands down with a lotiony massage and get freshly polished. Of course, you begin to realize rather quickly if that nail salon really is any good at all. It's hard to tell at first, since they do a lot better than you could ever do, and you have nothing else to compare them to. Then begins the hunt for the perfect nail salon.

In my hometown of Staten Island, there are nail salons literally on every block, usually located next to a pizzeria and a bagel store/deli. Within a one mile radius of my old house, I could walk to about 8 different nail salons. Take that number and times it by 58 square miles. That perfect nail salon might be hard to find. Actually, screw perfect, I'm just looking for half decent. Unfortunately, the best pedicure I've gotten to date wasn't even in this country; it was in Vancouver.

These places use trickery to make you think you're getting a great overall experience. From what I've seen, the nicest looking places are usually the one who will charge the most and give you the worst service. I usually aim for the crusty looking hole in the wall - they know service! I'm not asking for much, just don't make me bleed, don't get polish all over the place (I can do that myself), don't talk about me while I'm sitting right in front of you in languages I can't understand and have a real nail dryer, not just a ceiling fan for me to stick my hands underneath.

How come every time I get
a mani/pedi no one gives
me a pretty pink flower to
hold and wet rocks to
step on?

Nail salons in Virginia are a little different than those in the great state of New York. For one thing, the prices of a manicure are doubled, for service that is exactly the same, or less than that I would have received back home. I've been to three or four different locations down this way before I retreated to painting my own nails this past winter. It didn't look too terrible so long as you looked at them from 10 feet or more away.

After going months and months with bland fingers, I decided two weeks ago to get something called a "permanent french", which is basically some kind of acrylic gel that they put on your nails and then you stick them in this oven looking device with a blue light that bakes them, and voila! Perfect nails. It's amazing how beautiful a girl can feel when her nails are fresh and shiny. Until they start to grow out. Then you feel like homeless white trash.

I decided on my lunch hour today to take a trip to a nail salon to remove the overgrown french tips, which would turn out to be over-all traumatizing experience. I sit down in the broken and dirty computer-like chair and was told to stick my hands into a scalding hot bowl of nail polish remover. While I'm trying to ignore the burning flesh of my fingers, I can't help but notice the giant flat screen TV in the back, playing an honest to god Asian karaoke DVD of American songs sung with an Asian accent. I should mention that all 10 of these songs were from the 80's or early 90's, every "video" of the re-made song involved some Asian woman running through a field and the DVD was on repeat for about an hour before they switched the TV to an Asian movie, dubbed over poorly in a different Asian language with English subtitles.

After the skin on my finger tips had melted away, the manicurist proceeded to take the mechanical nail saw to remove the excess acrylic on my nails that the scalding hot soaking process didn't remove. Unfortunately, she started to get a little impatient and thought it was a better idea to saw away at layers upon layers of nail until flames started shooting up from my burning nail beds.

With bad karaoke music in the background, I walked over to the sink and got a nice whiff of delicious mildew. I guess the owner must have seen my screw face, because she soon lit some incense. So, now not only did the salon smell like mildew, but it smelled like matches and bad Korean incense. I sat down, and took my ring off and sat back because at least now I could get a little hand massage. Or not. Instead, she started to paint my nails, while traces of glue and acrylic remained all over my dry, unlotioned hands.

She begins to examine my face intensely for a good 30 seconds before she opens her mouth and says:

"You want eyebrow wax?"

"Um, no thanks", I said.

Now I'm just sitting there feeling insecure and defeated. What's wrong with my eyebrows? Why would she just offer out a random eyebrow waxing if I clearly don't need it? I have no stray and straggly hairs, I maintain my eyebrows almost too often. A part of me wanted to let her wax them so I could stop feeling like that 15 year old after-school special girl wishing for people to accept the real her.

Finally, after two hours of this nonsense, I sit down in front of the nail dryer, which is literally a box with a light bulb in it and a mini fan, as if the combination would actually dry my nails any differently then if I just blew on my fingers. While sitting there, I noticed that the manicurist proceeded to put the tools she used back into the "Sterile Package" in which they came from. After that she walked over to another girl and practically molested her from behind. I know that nail salons are usually a lax environment, but this seemed above and beyond. Before I could escape, she handed me a card to get a free manicure after paying for six. I don't think I'll be using that card anytime in the future.