Soho Nail Lounge — Attraction in Durham

I’m giving 2 stars ONLY because the quality of the work was good but the lack of customer service and communication was horrible and deserved -5 stars. I am not from here and had a sudden broken nail I attempted to do a quick fix till I return home and originally asked for a take off of my dip set with a clear polish coat. When I set down the tech who never greeted me nor stated her name tried to encourage me to do another dip set to which I politely declined out of fear I would not get what I’m used to having done, which I explained nicely. I have been a faithful customer with the same nail tech for over 9yrs back home and am here for a work assignment and needed to get a quick fix for a few days. I declined and inquired about the manicure options cause I still wanted to at least have my nails look somewhat decent. I requested to see a manicure menu to which she explained they had a $23 classic manicure that would give me a cleanup. I said great I’ll take that with gel polish. About this time another customer comes in requesting a full set of nails. This is when my tech started to become distracted she had the new customer sit next to me and advised her she would only be about five more minutes to which I questioned because she had just started doing my nails. I still sit back in hopes that I would continue to get the services I requested shortly after the new customer sat down she called for what could’ve possibly been her daughter a much younger lady came out the back and finished my nails. This process abruptly ended after the Drying process, to which I asked, is that all the manicure includes? The young girl looks at the older woman who is now working on the other customers nails, and says oh no, no you only got gel polish. I attempted to go back-and-forth with her and out of frustration I quickly quit and ultimately washed my hands and paid for the services I had received. Upon getting to the register, my total was higher than what the manicure would have been, I asked as to why and she explained that each service was charged separately this made me even more mad cause this was the reason I opted to just get the manicure in the 1st place at least I would have gotten the nasty residue from the dip removal cleaned up off my hands but no I just paid crazy money for a removal and polish. I’m not a mean person and my mother raised me to treat people better than they treat me so I kindly said thank you to the young girl who took over and tipped her very fairly despite the situation and walked out. You cannot make me believe this was not a situation where she didn’t understand what I wanted but rather moved on to the higher ticket client and if you thought there was a change in the requested services it’s customary to ask for clarification from the customer, but this couldn’t be done because you had already moved on to help somebody else. I will not be back for any further services and am sad that this was my experience cause this could’ve been a great find being so close to where I now have to work a huge portion...

I had never visited this salon before. My normal salon is in Cary. I broke my nail at work and it was pretty and bad. I called ahead for a walk-in and was told I could be seen if I arrived in about 15-20 minutes. Great.

When I arrived I was told to pick my color and wash my hands. I picked a cat eye design then ended up waiting an additional fifteen minutes to be seen. I was not spoken to once I picked out my color. The person who came in after me was greeted more warmly. My technician did not greet me, he just asked me what color I wanted and told me to sit down. When I sat down he seemed annoyed as he waved me over and asked me again what color I wanted. I pointed out the color on the display and told him the number. He began to become visibly frustrated and short with me when he couldn’t find the polish. I was feeling pretty awkward and I wanted to leave at that point but I needed to fix my broken nail.

When he removed my gel polish, he didn’t have them soaking in much acetone. The polish didn’t come off so he drilled it off, which hurt my nail beds and cuticles. One point my pinky was spun around the drill. He asked me what shape I wanted (and I told him) he kept asking me if I wanted a different shape. He then said I should shape my nails like his and did the shape I said I did not want. I ended up picking two colors to alternate. Even trying to explain what nails I wanted each color felt like an argument. I pointed to the nails I wanted to be different color (two on each hand) and he would grab the nail next to it instead. He used the polish I picked (after asking other technicians to find it) but never did the cat eye effect. When I asked about the cat eye, he said he is doing my manicure and shut me down. At the end, he sliced my cuticle with a nail file. Why did he need to use a nail file on my cuticle? He seemed nicer at the end but I was already mentally defeated and just wanted to leave.

I felt so awkwardly helpless the whole time. I do not think I will be going back. I am so bummed. I am grateful I was not charged extra by another employee for the cat eye design I never got. I could have done this all at home if I just would have waited a...

I felt like such a burden to everyone here. The nice backwards hat guy was the only one who made me feel welcome. When I came in an hour and half before close (my bad) the staff just stared at me and no one said anything. It was my first time in here so I wasnt sure where to go to be helped or if it was appointments only. I came through the back so decided to go to the front and I found the front desk. A guy asked me how he could help me and I told him I wanted gel mani and regular pedi. He looked extremely confused and worried, and mentioned that the mani and pedi would have to be done at the same time since they closed soon. I'm totally fine with that, that's more convenient for me, but I guess that's why everyone looked confused and hadn't said anything to me - they didnt want me there. I asked the guy if the salon could do blue chrome nails. He showed me a purplish black chrome powder and a silver powder but said it can only be done on black nails. I didnt understand why so later I asked the woman doing my nails if I could have blue chrome nails. She said they didnt do chrome at all. I told her that's odd because the guy at the desk showed me 2 different chrome powders. Then the backwards hat guy doing my pedi explained only the owner could do chrome, and she wasnt in today. So I got 3 different answers about the chrome. The guy from the front desk also made another mention about leaving on time. Overall, my nails look very good and the guy who did my pedicure was extremely nice, patient and respectful to me. But I've learned my lesson about coming that late. I didnt like the overall unwelcoming atmosphere of...