I had sent an email to PMP after my service, but never received a response so unfortunately I gotta leave it here now. :(
I was referred to this salon by a friend of mine who gets a lot of really cool and complicated designs done here, so I felt confident that they could accomplish the relatively simple design I wanted. I was leaving the next day to go out of town and I'm getting engaged on this trip, so these nails were pretty important because the photos we will be taking of the proposal will last a lifetime.
I want to preface this by saying that the tech I had and the woman at the front desk are very very sweet and kind. And the tech did work very hard and wanted to make me happy, and I think she is a lovely person. I just feel like her skill level was not able to deliver what I was looking for, and the attention to detail was not as good as it could have been, as I had to keep asking her to fix things during the service.
These nails really fell short of expectation. I had texted photos of what I was looking for prior to my appointment and was assured that they could do the design I wanted, but when it came time to do the gold line underneath the French tip, I learned that they don't carry the right supplies to do it so they would be painted free-hand instead. This meant that they wouldn't be as shiny, defined or as uniform in size as I wanted. The gold painted lines turned out almost as thick as the white on the French tip, which just looks weird and unbalanced. Also prior to adding the gold, the technician filed off the white French tip layer she had done first! This made no sense to me because it would make the sparkle look dull (the white had some glitter in it initially, and she had only done 1 opaque layer), filing it off now would take longer, and make the white not pop as well. Once the white was filed off and the gold was added, there was a very noticeable nude colored gap between the white and the gold, which just looked bad. I asked the tech to add another layer of white and to bring the white lines down lower so it touched the gold, which she did, but it still doesn't look right, and some nails still have a noticeable gap even after her trying to fix it.
Also my cuticles were cut 4 times, making me bleed. She was pretty over enthusiastic with the amount of filing she did throughout the service, and it was pretty painful after a while. She filed my natural nails shorter initially (which I asked for), then she filed the gel-X tips after (normal), but then throughout the service she kept filing the sides of my nails again and again and again. I finally had to ask her to stop because it hurt too much. I dont understand why she kept dremeling my cuticles when clipping them would have sufficed, but when she finally did do some clipping because the cuticles she was trying to get off weren't coming off with the dremel, she kept stabbing me with the end of the cuticle clipper. All of it wouldn't have been so bad though without the frequent use of acetone on my fingers before she had even started on the design. :-/ I also don't understand why she would only paint 1-2 nails at a time, have me switch hands and put them under the UV light, then switch again over and over. Why not just paint every finger on that hand and then put it under the light?? This took up sooo much time and really felt unnecessary.
I'm really not a person to complain, and I really didnt want to even say anything, but I really am disappointed by the quality of work that I received. I really do think the tech is a sweet girl, I just think she needs more training. The service cost me $125 (gel-X, French tip + design) and took THREE hours too, which was just waaaay too long. My appointment was at 11:30 and I didn't leave until 2:30. It made me late for an event I needed to go to. If I had more time I probably would have asked for her to fix the white/gold line issue, but by that point I was just too frustrated, antsy and late and had to go. I also felt that even if I had asked her to fix it, it still wouldn't look anything like what I wanted. She did ask me if I liked them when she was done, but I was resigned at that point so I said they were fine and left, but I didn't feel good about it. The nails are genuinely "fine," but when I look down at them all I can think about is how frustrated I am instead of thinking about how happy I'm going to be with an engagement ring on. :-(
I don't need a refund and I am not asking for one, because I do feel that the tech should be paid fairly for her time and effort. I just wanted someone to know what happened. I ended up finding another salon once I left for my trip who fixed my nails for me and only charged me $25, and my nails were done in 30 minutes. :-/ read more