UT Nails

I will definatly be going back to nok! She’s young and quiet but did an amazing job on my shellac manicure and pedicure my nails are still perfect after a week with no signs of chipping or rips; and that’s a first with the shellac. The prices are great! 25 for manicure and 20 for pedicure! They don’t have any music so you just sit their awkwardly in silence, but it’s cheap and she does amazing job!

This place is barely «ok» if you are the 1^st person coming through door as they open. The owner did my nails but rushed through my mani & pedi plus seemed to be more concerned with customers that came in after me. She was short staffed & I understand that one can get overwhelmed but to give sub-​par service because you are overwhelmed will not get you repeat business. 15m after leaving my feet still felt rough, 2 days into mani; the paint has chipped off… it was a waste of time and money.
They ask you to pay first before getting services done & ask you to tip before you even know what the end product will look like. Also I was told by one of the ladies that works there that when you tip the nail techs, they only get ½ the tip amount that the owner collects the other ½. Glad I didn’t tip the owner, that means she would have kept the whole tip.
I will stick to Enso nails in Pflugerville.

I got my nails done on Monday, here we are on Thursday and they still look tip top. I’ve received many complements and have recommended UT Nails just beside Fiesta, every time!

This place was good the first time. The second time the lady completely botched my nails. And overcharged me and then on top of it ran my card over the price she told me. I believe the lady was the owner, she rushed through… made my fill chunky and uneven… and on top it did my gel polish and missed spots. I didn’t realize how bad it was until after I left and I called to see if I could have the original person, and I was told the person that did them had to fix them… and I decided not to to back.

This place is awful. They need to change out all the chairs including the pedicure chairs. One of the lady made me bleed on my ankle.

Yes, this place looks a little questionable but do not fear! I have been to various salons all over Austin and always beat myself up for not coming here. No matter how many people are waiting, these ladies will take their time and never rush to get someone else in a chair. I have been in this chair for 35 min and counting. I’m actually about to have my legs massaged so, goodbye!

One more reason to love this place… I had surgery recently & my left foot is in a surgical boot. Even though they were already running the Mon-​Wed discount, they gave me ½ price on my pedicure. Didn’t ask for it, they just gave it to me. I am a regular here & it is sometimes very crowded, but they do a great job, remember my polish preferences, and are family owned & operated. They get my vote. Yeah, if you want the spa experience, you shouldn’t go here. However, if you want a GREAT price & a really good mani/​pedi, you should go. No frills keeps the prices low. Shout out to UT Nails!

Best place to get a manicure/​pedicure on a Mon, Tues, and Weds. They have a $ 27 deal (saves you $ 3 off of their normal pricing) and do a really great job. The wait time was a little long, but once I was in the chair, the overall time was a little under an hour. It was just my speed — fast to get my going on my way, but not rushed by any means.
The M-​W deal is also great, since there were very few client’s at the salon. It was a quiet and relaxing experience, and wonderful to catch up with the friend I was with.
If there IS a wait, I suggest putting your name on their list and heading over to Fiesta to grab a bite to eat.

Some of the nail techs here are phenomenal, and others are absolute butchers. Nalg (spelling?) is amazing. She gave me a great hand massage and made my nails look amazing — evenly shaped, no ridges or bubbles in the polish. I would have paid her double. The manager (a middle aged woman who sits at the first chair), on the other hand, I would have paid to stay away from my hands. She rubbed lotion on my arms which I’m assuming was the massage. She filed and buffed my nails so hard that by the time I asked her to ease up she had broken three of my nails and left the others paper thin. Even after all of that my nails were so jagged and oddly shaped that I had to go home and file my ugly nubby nails down even more. The white polish has bubbles and black spots (how does that even happen?) and is all over my cuticles, the skin around my nails and my knuckles (again, wtf?). The interior and the chairs are fine and I’ve never had any cleanliness problems. I always go back because the prices are the best in austin. Next time I get someone new, though, I’ll pay closer attention instead of immediately getting sucked into the newest pictures of Kate Middleton’s baby bump and hopefully I can avoid having weird child-​like hands.

Look at what they did to my nails. Scabbed for 2 weeks:
I can’t draw any conclusions about this place because 1) I only have been there once (people have bad days) and 2) I’m new to shellac so perhaps this is normal…
In any case, my fingers were mutilated and I was in pain for weeks. Never going here again, and too scared to ever get shellac again.

Went on a Sat morning and it wasn’t the best experience.
Facts:
— Their mani/​pedi special is now $ 27 and it’s M-​W only.
— Mani regular price = $ 10
— Pedi regular price = $ 20
— I went there on a Sat afternoon and there were only 3 women working. The ratio of pedi chairs to available personnel is off.
Opinions/​assessments:
— The odor of polish is overwhelming. I got a headache from it.
— I waited about 20 minutes to get a manicure.
— The woman who did my nails is super fast; however, she was kind of sloppy and I had to ask her to paint my entire nail rather than almost to the edges.
— The place is pretty dingy. I could still see cuticles from the previous person hanging on the cuticle cutter. I told her to dip that shizz into the mystical blue liquid before it touched my skin.
— Color selection is mediocre. At least it has a couple of colors from 2012 spring/​summer. They have a good number of nude tones from OPI and China Glaze. Didn’t see any coral, though.

I have never had a bad experience at UT Nails. I gave them three stars because I think the combination of wait time, service and length of pedicure (I would like more calf-​rubbing, please!) doesn’t warrant more than that. HOWEVER, as others here have mentioned I don’t expect 5-​star service for the $ 25 mani/​pedi special. You get what you pay for and it’s great for the price. I always bring my own polish to any nail salon and I have found that the pedi actually lasts longer and chips less than some of the pedis I have gotten here than from some other, more expensive, nail salons.

I second Lauren w.‘s review. I try to maneuver my mani/​pedi schedule around the mon-​weds $ 25 special mostly because the crowd is smaller then, too. They are speedy, great, and I’m just happy to have found a place that’s just nails. no add-​ons to force down my throat, etc. Their waxing services are quick, cheap, and good as well.
I will say, I’ve generally held to the «bring my own polish» rule and I’d suggest that if you’re particular, bring your own. The $$ you’re saving on the services can go towards you buying some great OPI colors.

For the price, the service is great. Even if you don’t go in for the $ 25 mani/​pedi, a normal mani/​pedi will only run you about $ 30. I went in for a pedicure, they saw me right away and did a solid job. I could’ve used a bit more of the foot/​calf massage that normally goes along with a pedicure, but you get what you pay for.
The one thing I could’ve done without? The 30 minute infomercial on prostate health that played on the TV the whole time I was in there.

I used to be a faithful to this place until the last 3 visits there.
Horrible service. I waited 45 minutes today just for a pedicure and full set.
The water for my pedicure was ice cold, i had to sit there and wait for another 15 minutes before getting service, the lady shredded my skin to pieces from scrubbing too hard, and my french tips didn’t look good at all.
And the full set was even worse.
She cut me multiple times, burned me with the machines, didn’t use the right sized tip so now there’s a huge gap between the acrylic nail and my real nail just waiting for food and junk to get stuck in.
I like my nails very very short, as short as they’ll go, and no matter how many times I told her, she wouldnt file them shorter, the tips were put on crooked, and the shaping of them was horrible.
I’m just waiting for my nails to get ripped off because of the huge gap in between the fake nail and my real nail.
I’m most likely going somewhere else tomorrow to get it fixed.
I understand people have bad days, but it’s three strikes and you’re out for me. Thats two more strikes than most people would give.
$ 46+ 2 hours of my life wasted. Great.

The Monday-​Friday mani/​pedi special is a good deal. It is difficult to pass up knowing it will only be $ 25. The service can be spotty though. I’ve had mostly great mani/​pedis — but a couple were less than great. Again, you get what you pay for.
I give a nod to Leslie L. She is right, the polish colors are often very weird or crusty (I take my own polish for that very reason) and several times I have either witnessed the «drop-​in bum» or someone who walks in wanting to see if anyone wants to buy any «slightly used» chi irons out of his trunk.

We’ve all backslid before in different ways. Hooked back up with ex’s, revisited a restaurant where we once saw a rat, spent another dollar at the parking lot carnival trying to squirt water in the clown’s mouth… You soon realize in all these circumstances that your undying American optimism is either naïve or idiotic, but either way, it needs to die.
Because when it doesn’t die a timely death, you end up parking your car in a lot full of 1991 Ford Tauruses missing hubcaps, windows, paint (and sometimes a passenger seat) to pay good money for an Asian lady (oh shut up, you know my mom’s Korean) to greet you at the door with, «What you want???» only to be told sharply in a Deer Hunter-​esque way «You pick color!!»…as you peruse the various shades of mucky purple, metallic blue, leprechaun green and neon yellow to try and find something red or pink by a brand that you recognize that wasn’t bought off the black market and isn’t full of lead or needs to be mixed with nail polish remover to make it into liquid again.
If you don’t head back out to your car and listen to your better judgement, you’ll be told that the wait will only be 15 minutes and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself if you’re reading an US Magazine from September 2007 almost 45 minutes later.
And when you finally do get to sit down in one of their jankey ‘massage’ pedicure chairs, you don’t dare turn it on unless you’re a masochist or you want metal prods driving into your kidneys. You’re sitting there with your feet in a dry tub wondering if you should make a break for it until the proprietress snaps at her 8 year old son who has been running around the salon playing basketball to put some green crystals in the tub and start the water.
Oh hell. Now you’re screwed. Your feet are wet, signaling — at this place — that your pedicure is like, halfway over. And you’ve already read their most recent issue of US Magazine, and you have too much pride to pick up a 2008 Redbook or Better Homes. Time to break out your phone and start texting because you wait there another 20 minutes.
Your feet have been reduced to prunes by the time someone makes it over to you to begin the trimming, pushing and clipping cuticles and tepidly massaging your feet with some cheap lotion before they polish your nails and offer to paint a flower or a UT longhorn onto your big toe.
As they set you at the UV light table for your nails to dry and a hobo walks in the salon to ‘take a look around,’ you think of the 3 hours of your life that you’ll never be able to get back, and as you trudge back out into the parking lot with your horrid pink/​purple-​ish toes, you resolve to never listen to the Austin Chronicle’s stupid and random «Best Of Austin» poll again or be lured and seduced by another $ 25 mani/​pedi.

«Awww HELL no!» is not a phrase that escapes my lips with much frequency. But is sure as heckfire did at UT Nails. After hearing about the good prices and reading the positive reviews, I made an appointment to treat myself and 2 friends to a mani/​pedi on Wednesday after work. We arrived a few minutes early to find a long waiting list, despite our reservation. Ok, I can deal with a wait for $ 25. After a bit, 2 of us were seated, leaving 1 friend out. Again, for $ 25, I can deal with that.
But you know what I can’t deal with? Being seated at an unsanitized footbath that has toenail clippings in it (which, sadly, I didn’t notice right away). To add insult to injury, my friend’s tub water was ice cold and no one bothered to check on us for a good 10 minutes after we were seated.
I’m not one to walk out of an establishment, but in this case, I did. We briefly attempted to notify them about the hygiene issue, but the complaint didn’t seem to register. The other patrons glared, as though my friends and I were some seriously snobby bitches, but I tell you what, I’m a snobby bitch who doesn’t have a staph infection, and that’s good enough for me.

After multiple mani/​pedis during their Mon, Tues, Wed $ 25 special, I absolutely cannot convince myself to go anywhere else. It’s such a deal!
Other places in town charge as much as $ 60 for manicures alone, which is fine and all if you’re willing to pay the extra just for the fancy spa experience. But when I get my nails done, all I really care about is how they look when I leave. This place does a great job every time, and I’m able to enjoy my polished fingers and toes guilt free.

This is a totally no-​frills salon with adequate color selection. For a $ 25 mani/​pedi on a holiday with no wait, I have absolutely no complaints!