Golden House Nail Spa — Local services in New York

This is by far the WORST nail salon i’ve ever been to. I chose this place as it’s close to my office and something came up at my regular salon which I love.

The nail technician I had completely brutally filed down my skin on practically all of my fingers. It was by far the most PAINFUL experience I have ever had for 1.5 hours. I was constantly telling her it’s painful and to not file the skin around my nail but to no avail. She didn’t seem to understand what I was saying. FYI I had a UV gel fill-in. Not only that but she gave me attitude and yanked my arms multiple times and muttered something under her breath also multiple times after I repeatedly told her it’s very painful. I even showed her a photo of the nail shape I wanted (almond) and she just didn’t know how to file the shape. She gave me a completely wacky square with rounded edges shape that looked terrible, NOTHING like the photo which I showed her 3x and still she couldn’t understand the shape. This was getting bizarre at this point and she had to ask the manager about the shape so I showed the manager the photo and the manager had to tell her to make my nail shape “thinner”. I don’t know why there is confusion around this at all. I felt she had no experience doing nails at all. At the end it was closer to what I wanted but the filing and shaping was the worst I’ve experienced.

Towards the end, the alcohol was burning my fingers and I was about to burst at how painful everything was. The end result was extremely unsatisfactory. My nails were completely lumpy. My thumb nails on both fingers looked completely misshapen, the tip leaned downwards and was an odd shape, the entire nail was extremely lumpy, the polish was uneven. You can see in my photo that the pinky nail is completely a different shade and there is still white polish on several fingers on the tip, leftover from my previous manicure. Every finger looked different. By far the worst job I’ve ever had. I paid cash which was already a 10% discount and I spoke to the manager about my issues afterwards and she gave me a 15% discount plus $20 credit for next time. I still paid $67 which is more expensive than my regular salon with the additional 5% discount I had. My hand is in pain still a day later, cuts everywhere.

I pulled the manager to the side privately after the entire experience. The manager was kind and apologized - first apology at all that I’ve received and said the technician I had is part-time and she’s not familiar with her work. Personally I think every person they hire should do their nails so they can test their experience. I’m not confident the nail technician knows how to do nails at all. I cannot go back because this exceeds my worst experience by a mile at any salon. I’ve been reading several reviews about how others’ experience is also painful and this amount of pain is...

Whyyyyyyy did not I read the Yelp reviews? I just wanted to sneak in a quick simple pedicure after work before a beach vacation and shame on me, Uno reverse card, turns out the whole time it was THEY who were doing the quick sneaking all along.

The business model of this place is that of many nail salons, but I’ve never seen it done so egregiously. It’s actually almost admirable: (1) appointments don’t matter, except that it allows charges to credit cards as soon as the appointment times arrive; (2) make sure every person - be they man, woman or Swedish tourist family of four - gets seated immediately, so that by the time it dawns on them that they’ve made a huge mistake, it’s too late - they are trapped; (3) provide the most mediocre of service as quickly as possible; (4) ABU: Always Be Upcharging, no need to disclose when or why it is happening; and finally (5) when the customer is paying (for the previously undisclosed upcharges, because they already paid when the appointment “started” 30 minutes before it actually started) and visibly will never return, offer them a handful of “$5 off” coupons and maybe.. MAYBE they will return.

I shan’t. And neither should you.

Dishonorable mentions: the poking, jabbing, and attempts to “flatten” my feet out with the rigor of an authoritarian powerhouse gymnastics coach despite my clear lack of such ankle mobility. My shins nearly cramped? Didn’t even know that was possible.

Will update if fungus.

This is my first...

Do not go here.

I went in to get my acrylics taken off, and they completely ruined my real nails. I went here because it was the closest nail salon to me, but I will NEVER EVER be returning. Not only was the service horrendously incompetent, but the tech (her nametag said "Joe") actually damaged the health and well-being of my nails for likely the next few months.

Several times as they were drilling off the acrylics, I could feel the drill drilling down to my actual nail and hitting the nerve. I continually told the tech that she was hurting my nail, and she would apologize and turn down the drill's intensity, but then continue drilling too far down on my other nails. Even as she was doing the service, we could both see my nails starting to rip apart on the tips because they were now so thin. Now my nails are all PAPER thin. It hurts now to scratch my arm, or shampoo, etc., because even things like that are too much pressure on my nails. They continue tearing even though I have tried putting keratin lacquer on it to strengthen them. And because she made the ENTIRE nail too thin on each nail, like down to the cuticles, I have to wait months for the entire nail to grow back to its original thickness.

[Note: The picture below is after I had already had to cut my nails basically down to the nub to try to prevent them from ripping, but they...