Goldust Nail Lounge — Local services in Albuquerque

*update the owner contacted me personally and apologized for my experience and offered a very fair resolution. I appreciated that she cares enough to reach out to customers and listen to their concerns and takes advice. I changed my rating from a one star to a 3 as I feel like that more accurately reflects my over all experience including the new updates. Thank you for reaching out.

I had an appointment at 11 am on a Saturday to have a pedi with gel and a new acrylic set (pink and white ombré). The pedicure was great. It was a full hour of pampering. After the pedi is when the experience really took a bad turn. I was told to wait in the pedi chair for someone to call me to start my nails. I had dip powder on my nails at the time and new they needed to be soaked off before a new set could be started. I waited an additional hour in the pedi chair before I was called over by a nail tech. Keep in mind I had an appointment. While waiting the hour I watched 2 other customers get seated for nail services before me. I sat patiently trying to justify that it can get overwhelming to juggle walking and appointments. However I think I was forgotten about because it wasn’t until one of the male employees was walking by and asked if I was ok and if I needed anything. It was then that I said I was waiting for my nail services to start. I had been at the salon for over 2 hrs at this point. He chatted with a couple other workers and I was finally called over to start the soak off process. The nail tech filled a bowl with acetone to soak my hands in. Normally at other salons the tech soak off dip and acrylic using cotton and foil. She had me keep my fingers in acetone for 30 min! She also handed me the dip powder colors and said to pic one. I was kind of confused at first and said I’m not getting g dip again. I’m getting a new acrylic set, pink and white ombré -what I booked the appointment for. Needless to say this irritated her and she took it out on my fingers when she did my acrylic set. I’m so disappointed with the out come of the new set. They are super chunky and thick. The acrylic isn’t even at my cuticles, making the nails look grown out even though I had the service done yesterday. Shaped poorly rough in areas and she hacked up my fingers with the nail file multiple times. A day later my hands and nails still hurt. I haves sores, dry crusty cuticles and ugly nails. I spend over 4 hours and $200 for my visit and I’m less than impressed. Wish I could go back and ask them to be fixed but taking the time to do that isn’t feasible. It’s not often I can schedule self care time, and it’s unfortunate that the limited time I have was waisted. I definitely won’t be returning for any finger...

UPDATE 6/7/22: I have received two text messages from the business to change my initial review. I actually had planned to edit my review after I visited a couple of additional times. The services I received were fine, although I did leave with a couple of cuts on my fingers once. All but one of my appointments have been considerably late, regardless of day or time I book, but I just planned the extra 20-30 mins into it. This was still not 5 star service but was better than my previous experiences and it’s close, so I planned to keep going and allow them to grow. However, I find it in really bad taste for a business to contact customers at a number provided for appointment-making purposes only and ask for reviews to be changed. The first time it happened, I chalked it up to a momentary lapse in judgement, but the second time was unacceptable. I promptly canceled the 3 appointments I had scheduled over the next week and will be taking my business elsewhere. Knowing how critical but honest reviews are handled, I don’t trust the slew of 5 star reviews this nail salon has. For transparency, I initially gave them a 2 star review.

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I really wanted to love this place, and my first experience was pretty good. I made appointments for a friend and I to get pedicures and we were taken back pretty quickly, but had to wait an extra 30 minutes for the service to begin. That aside, the pedicure was great. I decided to go back to get my nails done a couple of days later and saw that they had all afternoon available for appointments. I decided to just do a walk-in but was turned away when I arrived and was told to make an appointment. No big deal, I knew it was a possibility. I made an appointment for 4:30 the following Monday afternoon.

I arrived a couple of minutes before my scheduled appointment and signed in. Shortly after signing in, the guest who was in the waiting area was called back. 20 minutes past my appointment time, the tech sitting up front brought me the colors to choose from and told me that they took the other customer back first because she got there before me. I decided wait a bit longer and at 30 minutes past my appointment, I'd had enough and left. I understand first come, first served, but it completely defeats the purpose of scheduling appointments, especially when I was on time (even early) for my appointment. I'm hoping this is just a case of them being a new business because I really was impressed with the aesthetic, but it will be a while before I go back, if I do. There are plenty of other great nail places around ABQ...

Visited this nail salon while in town. I got a basic gel manicure and aromatherapy gel pedicure, one color, so nothing crazy or too time consuming. The facility seemed very clean and nicely decorated. The staff was friendly throughout the whole appointment.

Some things I didn’t love, I requested to have one of my broken nails that was shorter than the others fixed (via acrylic) to match my longer natural nails. I could tell that maybe due to time constraints, despite having a reservation, that the nail technician talked me out of it, and instead filed my longer nails shorter. I typically like and requested an almond shape, but because so much of the length was taken off, ended up being more of an oval/ wider almond shape. At that point all of the nails were different lengths and I wasn’t really in love with the shape. The pedicure was nice but other than the scrub and rubbing lotion, I don’t recall really receiving the 10 minutes of massage. Because I came with a friend for a special occasion I just tried to make the best of it. It was not until I went to check out that I was absolutely shocked at the price. Over $130 for a one color gel manicure and pedicure is absolutely crazy to me. Because my nail technician was very nice and professional. I still gave a decent tip which pushed the total to over $150.

I just tried to chalk it up as an expensive nail appointment. Except less than one week (only 4 days after) I had at least four nails that had chipped and were lifting off from the nail. I am incredibly disappointed with the quality of gel manicure, especially considering the price point that they are charging. At this point, I had already left town and was not able to go in and request to have these issues fixed. I regularly get gel manicures and do not have these same issues whatsoever. I’m always very good with having my nails last for 4-5 weeks. So having multiple nails chip after only four days is absolutely bananas to me.

If you are someone coming in from out of town or are looking for a good spot to have your nails done, I would not recommend this nail salon because you are not getting the quality at the amount of money that they...