Friday, August 20, 2010

Manicure

Last year was a particularly busy one for me at work. I worked a lot of long hours on a new system implementation. One of my rewards was a gift certificate to a day spa for 5 hours worth of services. Since I am an average office worker Mon-Fri, and have church late on Saturday afternoon, I could never find 5h to devote to the spa. I chose instead to use the value of the gift cert to treat myself and my best friend to pedicures and manicures.

I opted for colored polish on my hands and feet. By day 2, the polish from my manicure had already started to chip. 5 days later, it's so bad that I will have to remove the polish rather than look this sloppy. I'm not impressed. I will accept some responsibility for being hard on a manicure, since I was out in the hot sun yesterday on an ATV in the woods (not the usual dealings of someone who gets manicures). However, I think my aesthetician and the quality of the products are also to blame. She did not go as far down on the nail with the polish as I would, perhaps this is what is taught in school, but it ends up looking like my manicure is two weeks old and has grown out. I was not familiar with any of the polish products used on me, but I especially am not impressed with the top coat. Top coat should protect against chipping, and yet it has basically worn off after 5 days.

I am debating a complaint to the spa, but I'm not sure I have any leg to stand on. The gift certificate was for a spa which went out of business, but a new spa opened in the same place. They decided to honor any outstanding gift certs for the old spa. They likely don't want to hear a complaint from [essentially] a non-paying customer. However, the service I received seems faulty. I really don't think it should look this bad, even though I haven't been easy on it. I don't think you should have to organize your life around protecting your nail polish. So I'm not sure what to do about it, but I will have to make a decision today. I have a party to attend tomorrow, and I can't leave it looking like this.

3 comments:

Scum said...

Under the circumstances, if I were you, I would talk to them about it and express it as a concern that perhaps their products are not what they would expect.

I would expect a professional establishment to provide a product like that that would last longer than you might do yourself at home.

Jenn said...

I think you should call them. My nails still look great and I've used harsh cleaning supplies. I think the employee is the one to blame, she seemed to skimp on the treatments for you, the most noticeable being the mask as mine was thick like mud and yours was thin and runny. I thought your nails looked very light but brushed it off as the colour was pastel. How are your toes holding up?

liz said...

I decided not to fight this one. Had I been a paying customer, I definitely would have complained. Looking honestly at it, though, I don't remember a time where a manicure has lasted longer than a week. I have weak nails that bend and crack easily, which doesn't help things stay stable. I may or may not go back there. If they saved the crappy products for the customers of the old spa, then I don't like their lack of integrity.