QQ Nails & Spa — Local services in New York

Overall, the salon seems like a nice place with mostly friendly staff. However, the manicurist I had, Sofia, the older Asian lady with the short hair and black glasses, was unfortunately the opposite of this. I almost never post nail reviews but the lack of professionalism she had at a place like QQ Nails is worth addressing.

First, she was unable to place my Gel-X extensions straight on my nails and they looked like a crooked bunch. She then tried to convince me that that’s just how they look, but I’ve had them before and also watched videos on proper placement of the extensions. After filing them and they still looked crooked, she finally redid them. If she listened to me the first time, she would’ve saved us 20 minutes.

Her use of the electric nail drill was also horrific. She made at least FIVE of my nail cuticles bleed. This photo is the next day, where they are still raw to the touch with excess skin missing. Every time I expressed pain, she brushed it off and proceeded to roughly drill the next cuticle until it bled.

After I’d finally had enough, the guy in the front tried to be helpful. Sofia proceeded to keep drilling my nail beds when I was talking to him still and when she cut my cuticle yet AGAIN, she said in Chinese that one wasn’t her fault… keep in mind I’m Chinese too and I know what she is saying to try to look as if she did nothing wrong.

Finally, they switched out my manicurist to a much nicer lady who didn’t make any of my nails bleed. From the receipt, it looks like her name is Susana? What a drastic difference and she apologized when it wasn’t her fault! The guy also gave me $10 off, which was appreciated , but I would rather go to a decent salon and pay $10 more to avoid the Sofia fiasco again.

All in all, it has become apparent not all QQ manicurists aspire to or have the same level of skill and professionalism with customers. I have no doubt the other manicurists there are great, but sometimes it takes one nightmare of an experience with one person that can ruin a whole impression. I always support improvement, and hope no other client has to...

I have had a good experience here before so I didn’t want to give one star but the manicure I just got was not good. First, the tech cut my nails shorter than I’d asked for. But I just figured that I probably hadn’t been as clear as i should have so I let it slide. But then she just started cutting my cuticles without even soaking my fingers first (she never soaked my fingers at all). Honestly “cutting my cuticles” makes it sound like she was doing more than she was. She basically gave like one or two perfunctory snips per nail without even really looking. It was like she was going through the motions. I showed her that the cuticles were still visibly messy and she like did a bit more. Again, I pointed out specific places where they were uneven and she fixed as I indicated but I had to go nail by nail. I don’t think I have idiosyncratic preferences or anything — I’ve never before been disappointed in a tech’s approach to cuticles so this struck me as pretty strange. Then she went to paint my nails when they were still visibly dirty on the edges and underneath. I started to clean them myself and she noticed and got out the tool and cleaned under the left half of each nail, again with a sort of perfunctory swipe seemingly not at all concerned with the results but only with going through the motions.

My nails ended up within the realm of normal in the end (although with some spotty bits on the cuticles still) but wow it took a lot of effort on my part to get us there. Really unfortunate because I had such a nice manicure...

As someone who's been coming here regularly for over a year, I think I can finally justify writing a review.

Only come here for regular & gel manicures (DON'T LET THEM REMOVE GEL/ACRYLIC! THEY'LL STRIP YOUR NAILS RAW TO THE NAIL-BED!!) Avoid spending your money on pedicures here-- their massage chairs don't work, they give you a literal 5 second massage, and no callous remover (this goes for any of their spa pedicures as well) If you'd like to come anytime after 5:30 you most definitely need an appt.

This place is truly nothing special, but they are quick and are good about getting walk-ins a seat before 5:30. When I was regularly getting gel nail polish every 2 weeks, they DESTROYED my nails with their Dremel filers removing the previous polish. They stripped my nail so thin I could see my nail-bed through it (happened to me multiple times, was bleeding raw at one point).

I've had to work really hard to build back my nail strength, and since then I've only come to them for regular manicures which I think is more in their caliber (hard to mess that one up).

One last note is to AVOID ELY as your nail tech. She continued to tell me that she "didn't like my nail color" choice (that I brought from home ??), insisted that I needed 3 coats when I said I didn't want that, and was so rough that she broke my nail while filing it! I understand they're trying to be as efficient/quick as possible here, but not only did she not get the job done well, she made the overall...