Thanks to Carrie da Fairy's birthday present to me, I received my very first manicure. The three of us (third person = CathyWangsta!) made a trip to the posh day spa La Belle at the Stanford Shopping Center. Although I normally wouldn't do something like this, it was a lot of fun.
Clee chronicles the event:
~This was my first time ever at the Stanford Shopping Center. While I have driven by it several times, I've never actually gone in there. Our first stop was the spa. It smelled really nice, and was as posh as I imagined these types of places would be. Earthy colors, wooden floors, exotic plants accenting the room, and an aromatic fruity smell in the air.
~I noticed that the nail technicians called each of us by our first names. They must have asked for all of our names when Carrie scheduled the appointment, perhaps to make the experience more personal. We all got seated next to each other. When we came in, I noticed two guys getting pedicures. These guys looked like the LAST guys you'd expect to be getting pampered-- they were middle-aged and wearing sweats. They weren't even metro. But anyways, they appeared to be having a jolly good time. Carrie and I got "regular" manicures while Cathy had a French manicure. She grew her nails long JUST to get it, too. :-)
~The manicure consisted of the following: First the lady shaped my nails w/ a file. Then she scraped each nail surface with a metal file. As she did each hand, the other hand was dipped into a solution of warm, yellow-green, bubbly water (she told me it was water w/ some kind of bath salts). My pinky kind of hurt because when she filed it, she filed it too hard and cut the skin under the nail. No bleeding, luckily. After this, the lady put oil on my hand and forearm and proceeded to rub it in as well as give me a mini massage. That was nice and soothing for my bad wrists. Then she let me pick a color of nail polish (I picked a pearl pink), and painted it on. She did it so neatly- whenever I try to paint my nails, which is not too often because my stubby little nails aren't fit for polish, the polish doesn't go on that smoothly. Then again, this is her livelihood so of course she'll do a better job than me. After she put on the pink polish, she immediately put on a clear coat which I thought was interesting. I would think that the first coat had to dry first. Well, as Cathy & Carrie said, we're all manicure virgins. hehehe :-P
~After that, I was all done and I went over to this funky naildrying table. Hard to explain, but basically in the middle of the table was a wooden thing which you put your hands underneath, and there were constant streams of cool air coming from it. Unfortunately, Carrie touched her nails on that thing, and had to get a couple re-painted.
Thank you miss Carrie! It was definitely a cool gift. That place does facials, so maybe we should go for that. Or perhaps mud baths? I've always wanted to try one of those. I've noticed since I got the manicure, I'm very careful about what I do with my hands. First off, I'm always staring at my nails. Secondly, I now always put on lotion after washing my hands which I normally do anyways, but now I make sure I ALWAYS do it. Thirdly, I put on latex gloves before doing any kind of cleaning work. I even wore them to wash my car. Well you know, they say you can tell how old a person is by looking at their hands. So I guess it's good that I take care of them better.
Clee chronicles the event:
~This was my first time ever at the Stanford Shopping Center. While I have driven by it several times, I've never actually gone in there. Our first stop was the spa. It smelled really nice, and was as posh as I imagined these types of places would be. Earthy colors, wooden floors, exotic plants accenting the room, and an aromatic fruity smell in the air.
~I noticed that the nail technicians called each of us by our first names. They must have asked for all of our names when Carrie scheduled the appointment, perhaps to make the experience more personal. We all got seated next to each other. When we came in, I noticed two guys getting pedicures. These guys looked like the LAST guys you'd expect to be getting pampered-- they were middle-aged and wearing sweats. They weren't even metro. But anyways, they appeared to be having a jolly good time. Carrie and I got "regular" manicures while Cathy had a French manicure. She grew her nails long JUST to get it, too. :-)
~The manicure consisted of the following: First the lady shaped my nails w/ a file. Then she scraped each nail surface with a metal file. As she did each hand, the other hand was dipped into a solution of warm, yellow-green, bubbly water (she told me it was water w/ some kind of bath salts). My pinky kind of hurt because when she filed it, she filed it too hard and cut the skin under the nail. No bleeding, luckily. After this, the lady put oil on my hand and forearm and proceeded to rub it in as well as give me a mini massage. That was nice and soothing for my bad wrists. Then she let me pick a color of nail polish (I picked a pearl pink), and painted it on. She did it so neatly- whenever I try to paint my nails, which is not too often because my stubby little nails aren't fit for polish, the polish doesn't go on that smoothly. Then again, this is her livelihood so of course she'll do a better job than me. After she put on the pink polish, she immediately put on a clear coat which I thought was interesting. I would think that the first coat had to dry first. Well, as Cathy & Carrie said, we're all manicure virgins. hehehe :-P
~After that, I was all done and I went over to this funky naildrying table. Hard to explain, but basically in the middle of the table was a wooden thing which you put your hands underneath, and there were constant streams of cool air coming from it. Unfortunately, Carrie touched her nails on that thing, and had to get a couple re-painted.
Thank you miss Carrie! It was definitely a cool gift. That place does facials, so maybe we should go for that. Or perhaps mud baths? I've always wanted to try one of those. I've noticed since I got the manicure, I'm very careful about what I do with my hands. First off, I'm always staring at my nails. Secondly, I now always put on lotion after washing my hands which I normally do anyways, but now I make sure I ALWAYS do it. Thirdly, I put on latex gloves before doing any kind of cleaning work. I even wore them to wash my car. Well you know, they say you can tell how old a person is by looking at their hands. So I guess it's good that I take care of them better.
