Mani-Kir Royale

Well that was awkward… Closed down after one season of Tabetha salon take over…

Wow! First off, I’ve never had to go back and modify a review to drop the amount of stars I originally gave it until I visited this place… I dropped it from a 5 to a 2 after their last change in management. Funny enough, I never thought I would have to be writing another review from scratch… It appears that after I dropped the stars and gave a follow-​up to my original review, they had it somehow removed by Unilocal.
Anyway, originally this was a really great place for nails, was always clean, had great employees that knew what they were doing, was always a breeze to go in and get out of there quickly, always had openings, and were even open late… Did I mention, they had booze? A change of management and ownership a couple of years ago really screwed up the place. It had a fantastic name and great reviews before, but the people now working there seem very unskilled, unprofessional, and the place always seems to be coated in a layer of light dust.
My last bikini wax there left me burned in one spot, raw in another, still had hair in another… I honestly don’t know with that type of performance, how this place even stays in business now! The last time I had my nails done, three of them were crooked, and almost all of them were humped up with too much acrylic in the middle. I had a pedicure at the same time, letting them know that I have damage on two toenails and they needed to be filed down, rather than cut. They cut anyway, and then when I asked them to file to make them look like the others, they took a rough emery board and rubbed it across my toes, causing me to actually bleed. Instead of using a Dremel tool, like they had in the past or how other salons do it, they decided that the thick and wide Emery board would be better on my delicate and sensitive toes, despite the fact that the width of my nail was less than a third of the width of the emery board.
When I left, I had nail polish smeared all over my toes, outside of the nails… They never bothered to clean this and didn’t even bother taking one of those polish remover pens to the outside, much less cleaning up their mess. I had the same problem with my fingernails when they had finished them. I also noticed that they did a hack job on my cuticles and I have a small scabs on three fingers when they were done. I will have to hunt down pictures, as I took photos of their work because it had been so poorly done.
After the last two visits, I will never be attempting to go there again, despite the fact that they are in my neighborhood. I am very disappointed in the way the place is now run. The new owners and management truly ruined a wonderful salon.

I seem to be in the same Groupon boat with many other Unilocalers.
I bought the Groupon and called several times to make an appointment. An answering machine picked up all of my calls and wanted me to leave a message. I decieded to walk in and make an appointment in person. I was told that they are no longer honoring the Groupon offer. I called Groupon to ask for a refund. I was told to watch my emails for my Groupon refund after they investigate my claim.
Good luck everyone. I won’t be returning to Mani kir royale.

SCAM! SCAM! Groupon SCAM!
This business was fairly rude when I tried to schedule an appointment. When I did make an appointment on early this week (before the voucher expired) for later in the week, they said that wouldn’t be a problem. They also asked for a credit card to hold the appointment. Say WHAT??? And it wasn’t until they called me the day before the appointment to say the following.
«We no longer honor Groupons because we’ve had issues with Groupon. You can use the value of the Groupon and pay the difference, or you can get another service for 25% off.»
I had given this as a gift to a friend and do NOT want her to «pay the difference». I was told to «contact Groupon to get my money back»
Yesterday, I decided to check their Unilocal review out of curiosity. Apparently, they have been «not honoring Groupons because of an issue with Groupon» since November 2012. Well then why was I allowed to schedule my appointment with my Groupon this week?
This business has been «booked solid» every other time I’ve tried to call since I bought this Groupon. And I, as I live two blocks away, have seen the the place is a ghost town every time I drive by. I feel like they are purposefully trying to run out the groupon so that they don’t have to provide the service. And scheduling appointments two months out so that they can charge your credit card when you can’t make it. Just my two cents.
Above all of this was the horrible customer service throughout this entire experience. When they called about the Groupon not being honored, I was never even given anything resembling an apology. Just «Well then contact Groupon». And, oh yes, I did.

STAY AWAY!!! HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE!!! I would give this place zero stars if that were an option.
I had purchased a Groupon for a Gel Manicure & Citrus Pedicure at Mani-​Kir. When I arrived for my scheduled appointment, prior to the expiration date, they refused to honor it stating that they were having issues with Groupon. They weren’t offering any sort of deal in lieu of the stated offer either, I could use the face value of the Groupon only, which defeats the purpose of the Groupon entirely. When I was talking to the man (I believe he was the owner, but never gave his name — and he certainly was no gentleman) trying to ascertain what exactly I could get, he was rude and condescending… Definitely stay away from this place.

DO NOT GO HERE! I know this place recently had a re-​opening/​makeover, but my guess is that it’s just as terrible with maybe some new furniture thrown in there.
I came out with my nails looking even worse than when I went in!
I’m a nail biter and wanted to get short acrylic tips put on for a nicer look. My nail «tech», while sweet and well meaning, totally botched the whole thing and didn’t seem terribly experienced. One thing I have to give her is that she was being given bad advice from the start. Her supervisor that day told her to use wraps on my nails to build the extensions, saying those are a better technique to build on short nails like mine. I should have vetoed it. I’ve had acrylic tips for years with no trouble, and this girl had never used wraps before. We spent 2 HOURS cycling through applying acrylic, attempting to sculpt, re-​attaching the wrap stickers, taking everything off again and starting at zero. I was miserable and so was the tech. The «nails» that were being made popped off in a matter of minutes and were mostly very uneven and oddly shaped. At one point I was just sitting there for over 30 minutes with my fingers wrapped in acetone and foil to remove all the awful work. It took at least a week for my cuticles to stop cracking and peeling, and probably closer to two weeks of applying clear coat over my beaten nails before they returned to a normal texture.
There came a point at which I just said,“I’m done.” They offered to try doing regular tips instead, but by that time I had already been there almost 3 hours. I neither had the patience, nor the faith in the tech’s abilities to do those well. They may have been able to sway me if the service was going to be comped, or if they had offered a discount on a future visit. The owner made no such offers, which says to me that she doesn’t really care about customer satisfaction and return business. Also, she’s clearly not hiring experienced technicians or buying good materials. That poor tech apologized to me so many times, but she just didn’t know what she was doing. Frankly, I’m shocked they’re still up and running.

the bad vibe started when I called to make the appointment. The receptionist asked me «can I have a credit card to hold your appointment?» Wow! Its not like I was booking a surgical procedure! Anyway, I went against all my better judgment and went ahead with the appointment.
I came in for a Minx manicure and came out with a «wrinkled foil messy wrap’. I am so pissed I want to cry. I am in disbelief that I just paid $ 55 for this mess. The girl was really nice. I’m assuming she just wasn’t experienced. It took everything inside me to NOT yell at the top of my lungs!!! but like I said, the girl was nice and I did waste someones time with my nails so It just wouldn’t have felt right NOT to pay.
I will NEVER come back to this shop again. EVER!!! what a waste of time, I made the trip from Santa Clarita to NOHO just for this and now I’m just disgusted.
Pretty sad, they have an awesome location. The place looks dirty. The first thing I saw from the outside were wires very visible to the outside traffic. The place was dark, dingy, dull. The girls that worked there were young so maybe that explains why no one cleans around there.

This place is really beautiful and the staff is very friendly. I was able to get a last minute appointment on a Saturday around dinner time. I did however think the manicure was going to be less expensive than it was, because I didn’t read the smaller print on the advertisement outside that doesn’t include weekends.
I LOVED the color choice for the gels. My gel manicure didn’t take as long to do as other salons I’ve been to. I chose gels because I do a lot with my hands and was looking to get a manicure that would last for a couple of weeks. The manicure did last for almost 3 weeks, however it started to chip only within a few days. I was told by a friend it’s because we did 3 coats of nail polish (the more coats the greater chance you have of it chipping). I plan to go back and just do 2 coats.

I’m not one to write reviews, however I rely heavily on other Unilocalers reviews so its about time I contribute. Especially when I wasted $ 77 on a crappy mani/​pedi. Go figure this was the first time I went somewhere on a whim and didn’t look at the reviews.
Went in for a simple gel manicure and basic pedicure this past weekend. Good news was, we walked right in and we were seated right away. The staff was very friendly and the place seemed cute. That is the only good thing I can say.
The pedicure was awful. I had to stick my feet into a portable bucket with no liner, and the water was cold. The «tech» didn’t cut my cuticles at all, and the paint job is very sloppy. The entire pedicure probably lasted about 8 minutes.
The gel manicure that I was promised would last 3 weeks has already started lifting and separating from my nail and its only been 5 days. Again, my cuticles were barely touched. I asked the tech to make the gel a bit thicker than normal because my nails are already brittle, and I asked her to put a spot of nail glue on two nails that were a bit torn/​broken. Not only did she straight out tell me «no» on the nail glue, she assured me that the gel would hold them together. They broke the next day.
I don’t live in LA (not that I would go here again) but I thought I’d warn the rest of you.

Wow. I’ve never written two reviews for a place but after my previous bad experience, I gave them another try.
I purchased the Groupon back in the beginning of the summer, so did my mom and aunt. We thought it would be fun to go together and make it a girls day out for my summer birthday. We tried unsuccessfully to make an appointment for a few weeks over the summer with NO LUCK. They were too busy and said they had no Saturday appointments until September because they were so busy from the groupon. WHY ARE YOU SELLING MORE DEALS THAN YOU CAN HANDLE? Grrrrrr…
Now fast forward to my aunt’s December birthday and we decided to try again. I just called to make an appointment and was told I would be charged a fee for booking three appointments. WTF. After months of trying to make the same appointment, suddenly they have availability but they will charge me for it? No thanks. I told the receptionist that I was going to complain to Groupon and she hung up on me.
And– I just saw a NEW deal from them on LivingSocial. They are the type of business that sells WAY too many of these deals in the hope that you’ll get so frustrated you won’t use it. Groupon and LivingSocial should stop doing business with this place… it’s giving daily deals a bad name.

Came here the other day with my co-​workers. We didn’t have an issue with booking the appointment and the manicurist was good; I was s little thrown off by the bowl of water used for pedicures though.
I was contemplating returning until I had to pay $ 12 to have my previous gel manicure taken off. Seems a little excessive for some foil, cotton, and acetone. I guess many businesses these days try to make a quick buck over cultivating long-​term customers :-/

First let me say that I have such a hectic work schedule, so I rarely have time free or a routine schedule in which I can make an appointment – not a problem though! Mani-​Kir Royale always manages to fit me in when I am free.
Bridget does my gel manicures. She is a very patient, funny, and talented manicurist who goes out of her way to produce unique and beautiful nails. Every time I have had her do mine, they have lasted for at least two weeks – pretty amazing. She is always up for doing something fun and new, and always on trend with new techniques. I work with young children, and they always get excited when they know I am getting my nails done – they can’t wait to see the new designs – pretty cute right?
The women at the salon are down to earth, and I have never felt uncomfortable or unsure of their skills. I am probably going to start tanning there soon, once my schedule permits. Overall, I really love the salon and the women who work there. If you’re up for a laid back environment and a killer manicure, don’t hesitate to go to Mani-​Kir Royale.

Had a daily deal and got an amazing Mani/​Pedi from Brigitte. She did a beautiful job.
My nails look perfect, shiny and have zero chips even after a few days and a few showers.
The salon itself is very cute. It has a different sort of vibe from your typical nail salon which I really liked. I also tanned there and the bed was good and clean.
Prices are extremely fair and even with 5 walk ins and 3 girls working they managed to maintain a good time frame with everybody and all their nails looked awesome.
I definitely recommend this place!

I am sooooooo pissed at myself for not trusting the Unilocal reviews on this place. Mostly everything you read below is correct, the staff here is very friendly, the place in nice, but the Minx Mani-​Pedi I recieved was completely underwhelming! I wanted something special for my 30^th birthday, and left the salon very upset because I really liked the girl who did my nails, but she didn’t do a very good job. I get the feeling she just didn’t have enough experience with Minx.
If you know about Minx, you know that it’s not cheap at all. They were nice enough not to charge me for my manicure since it looked so bad, and I was ok with that since the pedicure was at least passable. I paid $ 65 for the pedicure, and 4 days later one of my toe nails is completely bare. The Minx has come right off in a matter of days and it was supposed to last 2 weeks! For $ 65, they really need to do better. I called them and still tried to be nice, but let them know that they need to do something about this. I spent over $ 70 including tip, and this was supposed to last!
So, my botched mani-​pedi was definitely a dark shadow over my 30^th birthday. And I’m still waiting on a call from the manager to tell me what they’re going to do about this awful, expensive pedicure.
I really wanted to like this place, it’s such a disappointment!!!
Since I first wrote this review, they agreed to re-​do my Minx pedicure for free. I’ll let you all know how that goes…
Well, they re-​did my Minx pedicure and did a much better job so I will increase my rating to 3 stars. I will not be recommending them to friends, though.

I was given a gift card over a year ago and have tried over 10 times to book an appt. Once no one answered the phone for over a week and I just kept leaving messages. I finally walked in and was told the receptionist, or whatever she is, left for the week to go skiing. Really?
Once I FINALLY booked, 2 weeks earlier. I called the day before to confirm and there was no mention of me in the books. Not that week, not any week, no names even resembling mine. It’s a mystery.
Other times I’ve called they’ve just been so busy that haven’t had time for me within an acceptable amount of time.
I haven’t tried in months.
I still have my gift card.
Place might be great, sounds it — but if you can’t get in, how would anyone ever know?

DON’T EVEN THINK ABOUT COMING TO THIS SALON!
I have never had such rude service from receptionist and management in other salon or establishment.
I asked the lady, who was themanager as i was told, for the basic service since they couldn’t accept my coupon. Then she left. When I came to pay, the receptionist, the lady with pink hair, told me to pay double price. In fact she forced me to pay that price threatening to call police. After arguing with her for good 10 minutes and Short on time, I paid. Police doesn’t scare me. What was shocking is when I asked to call manager to resolve the situation, she claimed to have no phone… She was extremely rude an ignorant. Do anybody else know of businesses with no phone in 2012?!
Not only I’m disputing the extra charge, but also reporting them to the Better Business Bureau. I am in disbelief how terribly they handle my business.

The workers are very sweet and accommodating but honestly it was the worst nail job I ever had.
I went in for fills and a pedicure, there were two girls behind the bar doing nails, one doing pedicures and another running the rest of the place. The girl who worked on my nails did everything completely different from all other places i’ve been to. I felt like she was skipping steps and was moving very slowly. She had long crazy nails which seemed to be getting in the way of her work. I never got the pedicure because then i would have never gotten out of there, plus they don’t have the fancy spa massage chairs which i like.
I get my nails done once a week and sometimes I like to try new places. This is not somewhere I’d return for a mani/​pedi or full set. ]She just didn’t seem to know what she was doing very well. I feel bad writing a bad review because the girls were sweet, but that’s really not the purpose of writing a review on a nail spa. Obviously people want to know if they can do the job well or not, and in my opinion… No.

Ok yeah, this place is better than I initially thought. Here’s why:
I was offered champagne, wine, tea, or coffee the second time around.
I got a «high maintenance» card to punch every time I come in. So, after the 10^th mani, I get one free.
When you check in Unilocal,you get one free design.
Every last thursday of the month is Trashy Thursday and $ 20 mani/​pedis.
aannndd… If you’re at a meter the receptionist will go out and feed it for you if you’re still getting your nails done.
awesome.

Original review got deleted, FK!
Used my LivingSocial coupon yesterday, what a FAIL.
Original appt was made with Debbie (at the advisement of Unilocalers) but due to an emergency, had to cancel it. Coupon was running out so I didn’t have time to waste and rushed into making an appt with any Manicurist. Wat a mistake!
Manicurist: «Nini» (I think that was her name, she was asian, young, soft spoken, cute but super dooper timid) quiet, too gentle (didn’t get all the dirt out from under my nails and barely cut any cuticles) massage was very weak AND she had super shakey hands! I could have done a better job at home at NO COST.
Champage: Cheap. I can get a better bottle for under $ 5 at Traders.
Atmosphere: Dead. Only 1 other customer was being worked on. I would think with all these Deals they’re selling they’d book people asap but nope. I have a feeling they have a shortage of Manicurists.
Equipment: I put my feet in a cheapy foot massage thing wrapped in a plastic grocery bag. Really?!
Tip was not included in the LivingSocial Deal so they charged me $ 11 for gratuity! Never have I been to a salon where tip was expected.
OVERPRICED AND RUN DOWN, I will not be back.

I usually say that a review for these types of businesses always depends on who you get. This by far was the worst experience at a nail salon. Avoid nail technician Jessica and ask for Paola instead!
I bought two Groupons for a manicure and a chocolate pedicure. I invited a girlfriend along for the pampering. My friend was running late so I started my pedicure with Jessica. While I was waiting I was able to pick out the colors I wanted from these cute nail samples (
). I’ve never seen them before and thought it was a great idea. You can put them against your nail instead of actually trying the nail polish on. I liked how they had a lot of colors to choose from and it was the OPI brand.
My friend arrived 20 minutes later and Paola got her started right away. Already I noticed that Paola was more friendly and talkative. This part I didn’t really care for because I like to sit and enjoy my mani/​pedi when I’m by myself. Also I was out of my element since the technicians were non-​Asian and spoke English.
Throughout the whole experience it felt like Jessica was a new technician. The French tip polishes on my nails were amateur. I could have done a better job. The unfortunate part was that I only noticed when she was almost done. I know I could have said something but we had somewhere to go after. Jessica didn’t ask if the polish was ok but I heard Paola ask my friend for approval. The massages were horrible and brief. It felt like Jessica was afraid to touch my feet. Paola gave my friend good massages and I was very jealous.
The couple nice things about this nail salon:
— OPI nail polish
— They offer you water, tea, or wine
The things I didn’t like or didn’t have compared to my favorite nail salon Nail Fetish (
):
— No spa chairs for pedicures
— No hot towels
— Inexperienced technicians
For my experience I’d give it 1 star. There were several nice things to bump this to a 2 star rating. If I got a better technician (or Paola) this would probably be a 3 star rating. Thank goodness I had a Groupon and it was pretty cheap. If I paid full price I’d be really pissed off right now.