Katie at New Concepts saved my LIFE. ...Okay, not my LIFE, but definitely my manicure, the day…read morebefore we were flying out to Las Vegas for our destination wedding.
After getting a complete hatchet job of a gel manicure at Studio Z (see other review: seriously, it was a gel manicure that started cracking less than 24 hours after application because the woman who did it had NO IDEA what she was doing), I was calling around town in a panic trying to find someone who could redo my nails that afternoon. I didn't want to try to fit in a ~$150 removal/new manicure at Treasure Island the morning of my wedding, because our schedule was already ridiculous.
New Concepts happened to have an opening. As soon as I got there, everyone wanted to see the original job, and confirmed it had been applied wrong--which made it take about twice as long to remove as it should have, but Katie got it off and then did it RIGHT.
She explained the whole process to me as she went, which helped me retain confidence that she actually knew what she was doing, and was also interesting for future reference. When she finished up, it looked perfect, and it has now held up beautifully for a week. I even scraped my nails across several rock formations while doing post-wedding shots at the Valley of Fire, and it didn't leave a scratch.
Finally, they didn't charge me anything for removing the original job--just $35 for the gel polish (gel with a manicure is $50 at New Concepts, and most places charge separately to remove gels). That was less than I'd paid for the original bad job!
I normally like to change my polish color a lot, which you can't do with gel, but Katie was so nice and I'm so impressed with how well gel holds up, I'm seriously considering sticking with it from now on. If I do, I will definitely be going back to Katie!