Providence Spa & Nails — Local services in Upper Providence Township

Came here to treat my best friend and myself to manicures and pedicures for her birthday. Her experience with Kim was phenomenal - this review is no reflection on that. Kim was great, her cat eye nails looked perfect, and if I ever go back, it'll only be to see Kim. My experience with Nikki (and the salon as a whole) was very different.

We come in, I say I want a full set of acrylics, French manicure with a bit of sparkle. We're choosing our pedicure colors, and a man physically rushes us from the lobby to the pedicure chairs, holding a folder with a few dozen nail swatches in it. We try to tell him we don't want those colors, we are still looking and he keeps literally shoving this single folder at us. I tell him I do NOT want these colors, we want cat eye gels, and he acts in a very exasperated manner and grabs us the cat eye gel color folder. We both choose a color. Kim sits down to do my best friend's toenails - she does a beautiful job. Nikki sits down to do mine. I noticed theyre blotchy, the cat eye effect is nonexistent, but I'm trying to trust the process. Then I notice she's finishing up...my toes look horrendous. They're uneven, the polish doesn't even come close to going all the way to my cuticle, they look like a plain splotchy clear gray. I'm tell her "this is all blotchy and there's no cat eye..." Then she begins getting frustrated, a few other employees come over, they all speak in their native language and laugh (what the hell?) And then she does one more coat and gives me a simple line with the magnet. Cool. $75 well spent.

So I was originally going to get the cat eye on my fingers, too, and promptly changed my mind. It comes down to the color, and I tell her that instead of the original French, I think I might want a dark red color instead. She brings out the infamous folder - the same single swatch folder the man was shoving at us when we came in...like there aren't hundreds of colors along the walls that I assume now are simply for show. I tell her I don't want these reds...and suddenly she cant seem to "understand" what I'm trying to say. I toss my hands in the air, I'm frustrated that she's acting frustrated with me, and I tell her let's just stick to the original French with a little sparkle. She ASKS me how I want the sparkle (this is important later!) I tell her I don't care, I just want a bit of shimmer somewhere. Along the white, all over, it doesn't matter to me. Just a little sparkle. The manicure happens, the acrylic is shaped in a beautiful almond (credit where its due) however it is uneven, lumpy, and my cuticles werent even pushed back. Shes painting on the pink and white, then she does a topcoat, then she's oiling my fingers and there's...no sparkle. Nothing. I ask her about it, she gets visibly frustrated with me, and suddenly cant "understand" what I'm trying to say again. At this point I'm frustrated, annoyed, embarrassed because people are starting to look, and I say "you know what? Thats fine." And get up to leave. My bestie was already long finished and enjoying her STUNNING set done by Kim.

We go to leave, Kim is checking us out with Nikki standingbehind. I pay nearly $300 for both of our services. As soon as I'm finished paying, Nikki sure understands how to show me her Venmo for a tip. I tipped her $5. On a $150 service. Because I felt embarrassed, put on the spot, and put upon.

My toes look like they could have been done better at home, my nails are sloppy and uneven with rough untouched cuticles, and neither look at all like what I wanted, but asking for what I want was apparently an egregious inconvenience at every turn. Kim was fantastic, but other than her - i could not recommend this place less. What was intended to be a relaxing afternoon turned into one that was beyond frustrating and disappointing. I am happy my bestie loved her birthday nails with...

This afternoon my mother and I visited the Providence Spa & Nails location. Upon entering the store nobody greeted us or told us where to look for our colors. We wanted gel manicures. The counter was littered with bottles of nail polish. Others were picking colors from there, so we followed suit. We sat and waited 15 minutes before anyone even asked what we were there for. After waiting 30 minutes my mom asked how much longer it would be until we were seen. We were fine with coming back at a later time if they were too busy. The answer we got was “soon.” 5 minutes later we were helped. The woman doing my nails told me not to watch and kept telling me to relax my arms, but the way she was turning my arms I literally could not relax them at all. I have cuticles that are bitten and rough, so I realize the surrounding skin will not be perfectly smooth. However, my cuticles and skin still look very rough. There were still dead white pieces sticking off after the manicure. Everything was very rushed. My nail was barely prepped and immediately started with gel polish. At one point she told me to put my nails in the UV dryer for “a few minutes” and walked away for 5. She said someone else got mixed up so she had to do something else. That’s not my problem. My “hand massage” lasted not even a minute between both hands. It was the most rushed service I have ever had in my entire life. I LOVE getting my nails done. I don’t mind spending the money for a good manicure, but I paid $45 today for the WORST manicure experience of my life. There was still nail file dust in my nail walls after the manicure was over, which you can see in the photos I attached.

My mother had a similar experience. The woman doing her manicure was constantly looking around at the bush salon the entire time. She barely even looked at my moms nails while she did them. My mom was trying to grow out her nails, but the lady filed them down so low and square that she barely has any nail at all growing beyond the nail bed. They’re thick on the ends. One nail corner doesn’t even have any polish on it. The polish she chose was not gel, which we didn’t know because nobody instructed us. My mom said to choose a similar purple in a gel color, but her nail tech chose the first purple she saw… very dark and nothing at all similar. My mom said she didn’t like it, so the lady told her to look at the check out counter littered with polished (where we looked originally.) she chose a new color, this also wasn’t gel. She got an attitude from the nail tech even though she chose a color from exactly where she was told to look. My mom chose a third color, which was gel. Her services were just as rushed and poor as mine were. We are severely disappointed with the service and price. We will...

This is my second time visiting this business. Had a great first experience and that's why I did give 3 stars. My second visit was not so great. I recently came back on March 23, 2022 for a gel manicure and pedicure. It also happened to be my birthday and I was texted a 10% off coupon for my birthday, which I thought was a nice touch. The business was virtually empty on a Wednesday late morning. Not a shocker there. My pedicure was good except for the fact that the technician did not scrub the bottoms of my feet at all, which I thought was standard procedure for a pedicure. Next was the gel manicure, which was good as well. As I was standing up to then approach the register to pay for my services, I was told by the technician that the total for everything would now be $80 instead of $70, which blew me away. That the prices increased just that day, which sounded a bit fishy to me. $70 is a tad on the pricier side to begin with, but I went back to this business because I had a great first experience and I was willing to pay the higher price. I also appreciated the birthday discount. My problem with this is that I was not even informed at all of these prices increasing. I booked my appointment for these services on Monday of this week. I think that I should have been informed of the price increases over the phone while I was booking the appointment or a sign should have been put on the front desk right when you walk in letting you know of the price increases because if I had known I would then be paying $80 for services versus $70, I would have walked out of the salon. This is incredibly unfair and dishonest in my opinion. I understand prices are going up in this economy but you were already on the pricier side and now this. I think the $70 price should have been honored since I had initially booked the appointment on Monday of this week before the prices had increased on Wednesday. At this point, i will not be returning to this salon. I called around to a couple of other nail salons in the area and for the services I'm interested in, the prices are under $70 and that is much more reasonable in this day and age. It's a shame because I do like this salon, they are very close to my house, and they do a pretty good job with their services, but that price increase is ridiculous. This is not going to help your business, it...