Manicure at Beauty Essence

Normally, my nails aren’t too bad, but I’d just been to a festival. Cutting them right down before they could get ripped off in a mosh pit had seemed the way to go.

Good thing I wasn’t at Beauty Essence for a pedicure; my feet had got severely stamped upon and my toenails were cracked and broken.

Anyway, my point is that my nails aren’t something to which I generally give much thought, but I do dedicate a fair amount of my mind to the subject of martinis, and therein lay the crux of the matter. Beauty Essence, it seems, are doing a promotion: during July, if you and three friends go in for a luxury mani or pedicure, you will each be served a complimentary martini to sip while your hands are nursed back to health. Sounded good to me, and I have to say that the martini wasn’t bad either.

It’s nice having your hands massaged and your cuticles softened and your nails made to be a nice shiny colour, but undoubtedly the best part of the treatment was the Wax Bag (it probably has a better and more official name than that but I never found out what it was). This involves putting your hands into a bag of hot paraffin wax (not as painful as it sounds) and wrapped in a towel as it sets around your hands. Weird but nice sensation, like putting your hands in a hot, albeit solidifying, bath. Anyway, as you can imagine, when you pull the now opaque wax off your hands, they feel amazing. So incredibly soft. Frankly I think the whole thing was worth it just for that.

So here’s the rub:  a mani and pedi are £40 and £50 respectively. Now, as someone who really isn’t that into her nails (I spend altogether too much time tapping at computer keyboards and piano keys), that sounded a little pricey to me. But, staggeringly, I did some Googling, and it seems that for a luxury manicure in a nice salon, which Beauty Essence undeniably is, that’s kind of on the inexpensive side! Ouch!

So here’s my conclusion: if you like getting your nails done, and would normally do so anyway, then Beauty Essence is a lovely, calm, oasis of a salon with sweet, friendly, professional staff who will make your hands feel good and your nails look nice, and also feed you martini. If you and several friends would like to have an evening together that doesn’t involve a frenzied getting-plastered session, it’s also good for that. There are three salons in London to choose from, and obviously they do a whole range of other stuff that you can check out on their website.

Happy pampering!

Beauty Essence salons can be found at:

The City:
7 Well Court
EC4M 9DN

Tel: 020 7248 0127

Mayfair:
40 Curzon Street
W1J 7UR

Tel: 020 7409 3221

Soho:
57 Poland Street
W1F 7NW

Tel: 020 7734 9734

www.beautyessence.co.uk

Image by Blissmwr courtesy of Flickr