I received a gift card for a gel manicure for my birthday, and decided to make an appointment to get my nails ready for the holiday season. My initial appointment was 12/3 at 8am. I love that the salon has early morning appointments. I arrived right on time, checked in with the front desk, located at the rear of the salon. I was informed to head upstairs, and Katie, the manicurist I was seeing, would be right with me. About 5 minutes later, I was settled in and my manicure started. Katie was very friendly during the appointment, and I was in and out within 35 minutes. I loved the color of my nails, and the shape Katie had filed them.
Fast-forward to 3 days later. On Tuesday afternoon, I had taken my gloves off, and felt a pulling sensation on my right pointer finger nail. I thought I had somehow ripped my entire nail off, but when I looked down, I realized that the gel polish had somehow cracked at the edge near the middle of my nail, and peeled back on the entire tip of my nail. I was pretty upset since it had only been 3 days since my manicure, so I reached out to the salon via Facebook messaging. The salon owner responded within 5 minutes, and informed me the salon would be happy to fix the issue, and I provided her my phone number as she requested so she could call me to schedule an appointment.
The owner contacted me Wednesday morning as promised, and we able to fit me in for an appointment Thursday (12/8) evening at 5:30pm in order to fix my nail. While I was only looking to get my right pointer finger fixed, the owner informed me that Katie would redo the entire manicure in case there was an issue with the polish not setting correctly. Very good customer service.
This is where things went south. I arrived at the salon on Thursday evening at 5:25pm for my 5:30pm appointment. I checked in with the receptionist downstairs, and she informed me to head upstairs and Katie would be me with shortly. I went upstairs and had a seat in the receptionist area, and wait. For 15 minutes. During my wait at least 2 employees passed me at least twice, and not once was I asked who I was waiting for. I headed back downstairs, around 5:42pm, to see what the delay was. I informed the same receptionist who I checked in with that I had been waiting for about 15 minutes. She asked me if I had been upstairs yet, and I informed her that is where I had been waiting. She then looked at her computer, and said Katie would be right with me. I headed back upstairs, and then proceeded to wait for an additional 10 minutes before Katie finally came upstairs to get me for my appointment. At this point, I had been waiting for over a half hour. Katie led me to her station, and I had showed her where my nail polish had peeled away. She told me she would redo all of my nails, and I thanked her. She replied: I didn't think you would mind. I thought this was a little abrasive, but I shrugged it off. Katie then wrapped my nails with remover and tinfoil, slipped hot mitts onto my hands, and then got up and left me alone for about 15 minutes while the gel softened. During this entire process, she didn't say anything to me, or check in on me at all. When she came back, she attempted some small talk, but it didn't go very far.
My second manicure was not as good as my first. There is a small air bubble, or bump of some kind, on my right ring finger and there are silver specks on a few of my nails (I have on OPI Kiss me or elf, a dark purplish red shade). I didn't notice this until after I had left the salon, and I didn't have the desire to go back and point it out.
Overall, my first experience was great and the customer service from the owner was phenomenal, which is why I am giving them 3 stars instead of 2. However, due to my second experience, I highly doubt I will ever go back to that salon. This is a disappointment to me because I have been looking for a good manicurist since I moved to Hamburg about a year and a half ago. I guess my search continues. read more