The Spur: My toes need serious help, what with the bruises and injuries and all. I would ideally get a pedicure once every two weeks, but funds and time constraints lead me to only go about once a month. Anyway I had heard a long time ago that one of the nail places in TST's Silvercord mall is 40% off on weekdays before 5pm, or something. So I was in the area and decided to check it out.
The Sticker: Well, they said there's no discount, but no matter, I thought I'd give it a try anyway. $180 for a regular pedicure is a good price.
The Atmo and The Goods: The place isn't particularly pleasant - it's what you get for a pedicure in a mall. Kind of small, messy, the girls chatting, TVs playing some local movie. There were two other customers during my visit, and they were both getting gel nails. ★★☆☆☆
The Service: Thing is, pedicures make me nervous. I know they are supposed to be relaxing, but all the blades involved... think about it. Because of this, I prefer to get an older, more experienced lady doing my pedicure. Well, everyone at Dream Nail is young and quite rude, attitudes in line with their age and level of interest in an actual nail career. So anyway, I told the girl I need a very opaque polish to cover the bruise under my big toe. Now this is indicative of how disorganized the place is: I chose four polishes on the color board, and they were unable to find any of them. I chose two more, still no success. Finally, they found me a light pink polish that's opaque (OPI's P-inking of You). This color is perfect for me and I think I might even buy it for touch-ups or to bring to future pedicures. ★★☆☆☆
Treat Me! Scrape scrape scrape, cut cut cut, it makes me nervous! She was forcefully digging all around my nail removing dead skin and cuticle and whatnot. At once point, I actually pulled my foot back in pain and said ouch. Alarmingly, the girl said "oh sorry!" The problem with this is, as all service professionals know, it's not cool to say "sorry," but rather something like "yeah it's gonna hurt a little" or "your feet need a lot of work" to alleviate worry and deflect responsibility. So her quick apology made me more nervous. I totally thought I was bleeding, but turns out not quite. I was so worried about this girl cutting me, I specifically asked her not to use the foot razor (it's a razor for the bottom of your feet that shaves off dead skin - illegal in many US states). Anyway, everything else went OK, it's just while trying to put my sandal back on, she touched the problematic toe with the bruise and had to redo it. Then messed up again, and redid it again. This took an additional 30 minutes. It's unfortunate but I know these things happen. That nail was not given enough time to dry and got smudged later, but I'm not gonna be anal about it. ★★☆☆☆
Pedicure hygiene is just not very good in Hong Kong, compared to the US, as far as I know. At Dream Nail, the sudsy soaking water had a definite smell of disinfectant, which I like. It just seems a lot more hygienic. But I noticed after each use of the instruments, she just wiped them and put them back in her kit. That's pretty gross. I don't think I'll come here, or any other cheap place, again. I just think it's not worth getting a fungus or something, which would be more money and annoyance. Sorry to be explicitly gross!
