I'm conflicted. I've never had acrylics before, so I wanted to do my research and looked around on Yelp. I live in Oceanside, so this nail salon was close and highly rated. I decided to request Michae... Read More
I'm conflicted. I've never had acrylics before, so I wanted to do my research and looked around on Yelp. I live in Oceanside, so this nail salon was close and highly rated. I decided to request Michael, as per reviews, for all 3 of my appointments. I'll go in order of appt and explain why I decided to not come back.Appt #1: First time getting acrylics! Michael was super nice, talkative, and cracked lots of jokes. I was nervous, and he made me feel at ease and was very gentle. There was miscommunication about the color of the glitter applied to my accent finger. I wanted gold but he put multicolored. I voiced my opinion before I put my hand in the LED light, but he said gold would make it look bumpy. (Not sure why a different color would do this) This was fine, but he hurried when his next appt came in and forgot to apply a top coat on my left hand! I noticed when I was leaving so I came back and he apologized and fixed it. We laughed about it, so it was all good.Appt #2: Everything went well. I opted for a glitter ombre on all my nails. Correct color glitter and top coat applied. :) At this time, we discussed when I should get a new set and how the nails would be removed. He said there was a soak-off technique and I voiced I would prefer that.Appt #3: I had made an appt for a new set in advance. They overbooked him for the day as he was just starting a fill for a customer getting a pedicure at the same time. Another older gentleman started filing off my polish. I asked why because I was getting a new set today. He asked Michael and they talked back and forth. At this point, I knew there was a communication error. The other man clipped my acrylics down and still filed off the polish.Here's when things went wrong. Michael came to my chair finally and he was mad. I could tell by his silence and no greeting when he sat down. I'm not sure if it was the man who took off my polish for no reason, the miscommunication about my appt, or me. That's why I didn't say anything when he used another acrylic to tear off my nails. In his rush, he would wedge the nail in my nail bed by accident on several occasions and made me jerk my hand back in pain. After doing this several times, he told me to look away and that I was being a "baby". Exact words, folks. It was painful. Not to mention it ripped off layers on my natural nail.I know I should have asked to soak off my nails, but I was caught off guard by his anger (which he took out on me and my nails). We ended up laughing about the "baby" comment later, but never again. I now go to a new nail salon in Escondido and my nail tech assured me she would soak off my nails during removal.Overall, Michael is very good at his job (although he does seem tired of it, judging from our conversations) but he does get overbooked quite often. Everyone does have bad days, so maybe I just caught him in one. But I can't take that chance again for my nails sake!Sorry for the long-winded review. Hope this helps! :)Also not sure if this is normal, but around week 2-3 of each fill, I always had one nail lift and pop up from the bottom. Never had this happen since I went to my new nail place. Read Less