Nail Salon Review

You pick color. I arrived at 4:55 for my manicure and pedicure appointment last night. The first words out of the Asian woman’s mouth were, "you pick color", after which she furiously pointed/waved at a display of nail polish. Picking nail color under pressure is almost as bad as picking out paint for your spare bedroom under pressure. But fortunately I landed on something pretty safe. So I picked out my color and handed it to her.

You sit here. They have you sit in this massage chair with a foot bath. The very best part about the whole entire appointment was when I sat in the chair and turned on the massager. In heaven there will be rows and rows of massage chairs with warm foot baths. I must admit I am half tempted to go buy myself one of these devices. Although, I discovered that pregnant bellies jiggle in a really hilarious way when jostled about by a massager. I felt like a big blob of jello sitting on a washing machine. But I was a very happy/relaxed blob of jello so I really didn’t mind all that much.

Foot up here. Next they do this thing where they wash your feet. I wonder what it was like to have Jesus wash your feet. It takes a special person to wash someone else’s feet. These women do marvelous work. The big challenge for those of us with ticklish feet is to NOT kick the little women in the teeth when they are massaging your feet. Anyway - first they remove your cuticles which sounds awful - and to be completely honest looks terrifying if you watch them do it - but the results are pleasant. Then there is much rubbing of the feet with rough sponges, sea salt scrubs and lotions. And of course lastly there is the paint. I can’t put polish on that well even when my baby tummy isn’t "in the way".

Over here now. They put these nifty temporary wafer-thin flip-flops on your feet and ask you to walk across the store to their manicure stations. Okay, no problem. I’m a total klutz all the time so why would I have a problem with that? Yes, well, the quickest way to make an entire nail salon come to a SCREECHING halt is to trip on the giant power cord they have running across the floor. I caught myself quickly, and found everyone had stopped what they were doing and was staring. At first I thought all the concerned eyes were checking to see if the clumsy preggo lady was okay. However, when the first words out of my little lady’s mouth were "Your nails okay?", I realized the truth. She rushed over not to help me disentangle myself from the cord, but to check for scuffs on my newly buffed, shined, painted, shellacked nails. They were fine. Thanks for asking.

Sit. Wheels. Chair. Next you sit in this chair (with wheels) and put your hands up on their little padded desk. Soak this hand, soak that hand, file the nails, remove cuticles, wash with sea salt stuff, get base coat, get 2 coats of polish, get final glaze coat. Good thing I don’t have ticklish hands.

Over here to dry. They have this little table with special lights that I guess make your nails dry quicker or shinier or something. So you sit there while they scurry around cleaning up. Every few minutes they come by to see if "you dry yet". I was talking to a friend and was perfectly content to sit there and chat with her an extra minute or two when little Asian woman says to me "You dry. You go. I take shoes." This was my cue to relinquish the wafer-thin flip-flops and retrieve my own shoes. Which I did as they scurried me out the door.

And now I have very nice, matching hands and feet. It was an experience. A chance to be pampered. And while I enjoyed it, it isn’t something I would do without a gift certificate!