Kate’s Spalon

I have been getting manicures on a regular basis for over half my life, and my recent experience with this salon was easily the worst, most unprofessional manicure I’ve ever been subjected to.
I was a walk-​in on Saturday morning, and asked if they had availability for a gel manicure. They told me to pick a color, have a seat, and the manicurist (she didn’t bother to wear a name tag or introduce herself so I regrettably can’t identify her) started my nails. About 2 minutes into my manicure, someone enters the salon, and my manicurist excitedly greets her and begins chatting with her about some new polish color. She gets up from doing my nails, sets up the new girl in a pedicure chair, and comes back to where I’m sitting. She immediately starts SPEEDING through my manicure, glopping on the polish in thick coats and not letting it dry completely under the UV lights between coats. Once all the coats of the polish were done, she left me unattended, and walks over to start her friend’s pedicure without saying a word to me. A couple minutes later, another employee sees me sitting there, walks over, and gives me a half-​hearted attempt at a hand massage since my original manicurist apparently couldn’t be bothered to complete the service I was paying for. Manicurist #2 did not bother to do a hot towel, or shine my nails at the end with alcohol like they typically do at the end of a gel manicure, and I received no explanation or apology from Manicurist #1.
From the time I sat down at the manicurist’s station to the time I left, 14 minutes had elapsed. That is absolutely unacceptable for a $ 30 service. If the manicurist did not have time to do my nails adequately, she should have told me that they couldn’t accept a walk-​in at the moment. I would rather have no manicure than the abysmal hack job I’m currently sporting. It is also worth noting that during the 14 minutes I was actually attended to, the manicurist cracked her gum in my face repeatedly and read texts while doing my nails. Not exactly the relaxing experience I’d hoped for.
My nails are already showing wear 3 days later. I have bumps and bubbles in the polish from where she rushed, and from her failure to dry my nails using the proper gel manicure procedures.
I will not be returning.

Unilocal’s going to have to come up with a better mean of expression than 1 star, when one is greatly displeased. For now. the filthy containers at ‘stations’, old gray towels, filthy sink at which all clients wash after the ½ baked smear of God knows what (again, from filthy container), nail dryers/​hand warmers that clearly hadn’t been cleaned in forever, open cans of soda and snack bags lying all over stations (I assumed they were from previous clients but no, they were in constant use by technicians), arguing staff (assuming, since their conversations vacillate between brief English and then not), the ‘technician’ (term used loosely) had dirty finger nails (some with wounds/​blood or? under nails), ‘technician’ roughly ripped at my skin with her tools, which collectively gave me more than enough cause to reduce the experience to bare minimum & turn away in revulsion as my hands were being rushed through, in addition to cringing as a tech stopped to find her earphones, attach them to her phone and stick one in her ear mid-‘manicure’. I felt ill and yearned for an iodine cleansing after. This is a factory and it won’t be long — that is if it hasn’t already occurred, before someone (or plural) will unfortunately fall ill due to the unsanitary conditions

I am from Chicago and when I moved to Greenville, DE it was difficult to find a nail salon on the scale I was accustomed to. This was over 5 years ago and I am very happy to say at this salon Vinny is the best at what he does. He cares, he gets to know you, and he takes his time. One of the things that concerned me was it would be a get them in get them out mentality. Just about the money. I will say that I can see some echoes of that starting to happen. As they continue to grow and make even more money the customer service aspect of it seems to go away. It seems to become about hurry up and get them in and out. Now that they have some actual competition in the area with some very good nail techs at other salons. It would not serve them well to continue on that path. I hope they can continue with talented and caring techs like Vinny, Maia, Joanne. They are incredible techs and the salon is super clean! Again I hope the owners take note

Just visited Kate’s and absolutely enjoyed my experience. Met up with co-​workers and all 6 of us got a mani and/​or pedi. Very clean place and there were tons of great nail polishes to pick from. Would absolutely return.

Didn’t even know this place was here, but a friend is a regular and wanted to treat, so I was game! Friendly and clean. Nice selection of polish. Had the regular pedicure for $ 30. Nothing wowed me, but it was relaxing and hit the spot. Would probably return if I lived out that way– when we did live out there, you had to drive 20 – 25 minutes to find a place for a pedi. All in all– decent.

One of the best spa pedicures I’ve ever had! The hot stone massage is such a nice touch. This place may be a bit more expensive than some places in the area but I definitely have not had the quality of service either. All the techs are very caring and precise. It is clean and comfortable. I’d highly recommend Kate’s.