The Little Nail Room

For the past four years or so, I've been wearing nail polish most (99%) days. Other than painting my nails (which I always do myself), I don't really have a routine to look after my nails and hands though. During winter, I try to regularly use a hand cream but only before I go to bed as I hate the feeling of freshly creamed hands. I do have cuticle creams and oils but somehow always forget to use them...

Thanks to another Time Out Voucher, I treated myself to a Deluxe Manicure at The Little Nail Room in Islington, about a 10 minute walk from Angel tube station. Instead of the regular price of £35, I only paid £16. It included the following:

• A replenishing hand soap
• Deep cleansing
• Nail shaping
• Cuticle work (cuticle trimming and tidying)
• Exfoliation (to give radiance back into hands and ensure to high quality mask is fully absorbed)
• Half arm massage
• Hot towel treatment
• High quality hand mask
• Hot glove treatment (again to ensure the mask is fully absorbed)

I was there for about 50 minutes - of which I spent 15 minutes with my hands underneath a dryer for the nail polish to dry. While they did all of the above, the half arm massage was really a hand massage and lasted about 3 minutes. Equally, the hot towel treatment consisted of her removing the cream she had put on with a hot towel. I wouldn't quite call that a treatment.

I was rather disappointed and glad that I didn't pay the full price for this. As I don't have any experiences with manicures, I am not able to say whether this is 'normal' or not, but I have decided it's not worth it for me. The nail polish looks ok, but I would have probably added a third coat, and it doesn't look any better than when I do it myself.

On the upside, it was still a nice Monday-after-work treat, my hands do feel very soft and the Little Nail Room is really cutely decorated.

Of course I picked pink! essie - castaway