Bad Salon Experience! Sorry to moan but I'm shocked.

[Claire1984]

Hey guys!

Sorry guys - don't want to sound like i'm moaning but I had a bad experience at a local salon a month or so back. I haven't been doing nails for just over a year as I've moved, but I'm hoping to get back into it soon. I'm working as a care assistant in a care home for the elderly at the moment so having nails on isn't really hygienic for me but I was off on a weeks holiday so thought i'd treat myself. I noticed an advertisement for a local salon say "ALL NAILS £25" and booked myself an appointment. Sorry but I'm going to bullet point what I didn't think was right.

• Wasn't given a consultation before treatment, just asked what type of nails I would like with the choice of white plastic tips or natural tip and overlay.
• Sprayed my hands with sanitize - no attempt to wash or spray her own hands.
• Sized up the tips, then started to cut the well area from them - telling me she couldn't understand why they put wells on these tips which is fair enough, she then applied the tips but didn't blend them - I was always taught that you blended natural tips so that they look like they are the natural nail.
• She then etched my nails without pushing back the cuticles - even though my cuticles where very evident. Used a file from the container on the desk that didn't look very clean - and made no attempt to sanitise the file what so ever.
• She then completed applying the tips and cutting them - this was the only time she asked which length I would like - I like my nails relatively short but she still cut them longer and explained she'd finish after the acrylic was applied which would have been fine if she had actually done it!
• Then came the finishing which was slap dash - nails were uneven shapes, some were pitted, tips didn't fit correctly on 3 fingers -both too small and too big. Again came the dirty nail file, this time she broke the skin on one of my fingers which drew blood - dirty nail file went back into container - WITH MY BLOOD ON IT!!!

I'm not sure if i'm being totally over sensitive but hygiene and sanitation only take minutes and to put a nail file that has blood on it back in a container for the next customers disgusting - that should have been binned.

I understand that we're all trained by different people of have different standards but on speaking with this girl it turned out that she came from the same college that I had trained at under the same lecturers 2 years before I did. I hadn't mentioned that I had trained as a nail technician myself untill half way through treatment but when I did she like to tell me how great she was at college and how drunk she was at the weekend and who she was fighting with!

In all I felt really let down by this experience - and that saying is true a customer that has a good experience with tell a few people and one that has a bad experience will tell ten.

The only good thing thats came out of this is that I want to do nails again because I feel that the standard could be raised and standards upheld.

Claire x

 

[xAnnaBannAx]

Fantastic for having the desire to want to raise and uphold standards within the industry but I dont understand why you would sit through a whole service that you were so appalled by...doesnt make sense!

 

[Claire1984]

Yup did cross my mind but I was kinda rooted to the spot and could barely speak!

 

[geeg]

Even with the best training in the world, some people will not be professional and take every shortcut and lower every standard to match their own!

You should have gone on recommendation. I would never go into a salon that had not been recommended to me as being a good one. There are plenty of great Scottish techs here that would have been able to give you advice on where to go if you had asked.

As long as people let others treat them this way in a salon, the longer they wil go on practicing and giving a bad service.

You should :

1. realised when you saw the 25.00 sign that you were going to get a 25.00 service.

2. never have gone in without a recommendation

3. having gone in .. walked out again when you saw the way the wind was blowing!

 

[yeahyeah]

i agree with geeg that you shouldve left... what in the world made you stay? i hope you complained to this tech and let her know you were disappointed in the service and why. if clients get up and leave before these kind of techs can finish their job maybe they'll start to change the way they operate. but if people just sit back and dont say anthing... especially other professionals... will they ever stop being lazy? i doubt it.

 

[Mrs Geek]

i agree with geeg that you shouldve left... what in the world made you stay? i hope you complained to this tech and let her know you were disappointed in the service and why. if clients get up and leave before these kind of techs can finish their job maybe they'll start to change the way they operate. but if people just sit back and dont say anthing... especially other professionals... will they ever stop being lazy? i doubt it.

I so very much agree with this. equally it can be difficult when you are actually there. I would have questioned everything and then complained to the manager/owner. I know I couldn't have gone through the whole treatment as I wouldn't have been able to keep my trap shut!
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[Claire1984]

Thanks for all your posts - i'll def not be going without recommendation the next time or going back there again. I've actually seen other nails done by this salon and they were good but that was a long time ago when it first opened. The manager wasn't in either it was just two assistants. But I just couldn't leave I really did feel like I was stuck there, I'm not a confrontational person, but I dont think i'll stay quiet next time. It gave me good insight though about how it feels sitting at the other side of the desk and all I can hope for now is when I'm back out there doing nails that I dont have a client sitting there feeling how I did that day. Treatment only lasted about an hour but that was the longest hour of my life!

Ordering my Nail trainer today from essential nails and phoning a few companies for course price info. I've been out of nails for a year and theres alot thats changed! Its shown me how much this industry moves in such a short space of time and you can't do just one course and thats it you can do nails, continual training is a must.

 

[ris]

I noticed an advertisement for a local salon say "ALL NAILS £25" and booked myself an appointment.

The first thing I would have tried to find out in such a case is what they do about the hygiene. Only after that - price-considerations if not further down the road. Because qualifications matter more to me than price in such cases.

Low price may come first if I buy a t-shirt... But something that has to do with tools being used on me, touching my skin?? I am really surprised some people are so careless..

ps) You say she put the file with you blood on back into the container. But how do you know if that file hadn't been in that container with someone else's blood on it before she took it out to file your nails?

 

[wendyrose]

I'm sorry you've had a bad experience...but these threads really irritate me! Firstly, would it not be more productive to send this information in an email to the salon or call the manager? Secondly, I understand how the general public get sucked into be rooted to the spot when something like that happens because they may not be completely sure if it's normal practice or not but someone who has been trained, in good practice, it would seem...sorry, iv no sympathy. There is no way in hell I would sit through that and then pay for it, I dont like confrontation at all, but there's confrontation and there just saying 'look im sorry im not comfortable or happy with your service, can you stop'. If nothing is said then she will continue to carry on this practice.