The Critical Consumer

Nail Salon review, Part II.

I hate to give anyone a bad review, but that’s kinda the purpose of this website, so here it goes. Upon first impression, Apex Nails seems like a great full-service nail salon. They have an impressive number of spa pedicure chairs that face a long row of nail stations along a mirrored wall. There are 3 flat screen televisions on the mirrored wall, tuned to whatever the staff wants to watch. The last time I was there, the TVs were tuned to the History Channel, the Weather Channel, and (thank god) Entertainment Tonight. The poor girl behind me was stuck on the History Channel end of the salon and kept trying to watch the E! show but it was obviously uncomfortable.

Now, I know most nail salons have the problem of the staff not understanding much English, but I think this is particularly true with Apex Nails. The only person who really speaks much English is the Maitre D, if you will. He’s probably the owner and he stands at the register most of the time directing customers to a spa pedicure chair and then shouts orders in another language to the staff. I usually spend the whole visit feeling like I can’t really tell them anything about what I’d like because they just stare blankly at me anyway.

As I stated in my previous review, I don’t really care about the atmosphere as long as the end product is what I expected and what I paid for. Maybe I make the tragic mistake of still painting my own real nails instead of opting for the more durable silk or acrylic nails. Call me old fashioned, but I think they should be able to just as good of a job on painting my nails as they do with the fake nails. The last two times I’ve gone there, I spend at least 8 minutes under the UV dryer lights and still find that soon after I leave one or more of my nails is already smudged. And I’m careful! This last time, my thumb nail got all messed up when I washed my hands in hot water more than two hours after I was done. I think the flaw is that they use so many coats and they do them so quickly, that each coat doesn’t have time to dry before the next one is applied, so none of them dry for a few hours. And you can’t really expect me to wait a few hours before I do something.

In general, I’m just not impressed with the service or final product from this salon. Their strength may lie in another specialty of nail care, but they miss the mark on the simplest of tasks.