Nailing it: salon treatment

In search of the secret to a good manicure, Erin Whitty road tests a range of nail salons to suit all tastes and budgets – and learns a few tricks along the way.

There’s nothing like freshly painted nails to make you feel groomed all over. A trip to the salon is a great way to achieve the perfect polish, and when you put yourself in the hands of an expert, you receive much more than streak-free colour. These days, nails are big business and the options are endless. You can now get a quick and inexpensive manicure at your local nail bar, enjoy extra treatments, or spoil yourself to an afternoon at an exclusive salon that will pamper, bathe, scrub and buff your nails. To point you in the right direction, Notebook: puts four salons to the test.

Star treatment
Christina Fitzgerald has turned her 20-year obsession with nails into a success story. Renowned as one of Australia’s leading manicurists, and with a celebrity following, she’s now developed her own line of polishes and is the owner of her self-titled company. When I arrived for my appointment with Christina, she ushered me into a leather armchair in a room that felt more like a friend’s home than a salon.

Most clients get a combined treatment of a manicure and pedicure, and enjoy the luxury of having the salon to themselves. Christina works on their fingers while Jade, the chief manicurist, attends to their toes. During my manicure, Christina explained that it’s gruesomely easy for manicurists to transfer infectious nail diseases such as paronychia, which deforms the nail bed and lifts it permanently from the base. Her team is therefore meticulous with hygiene, and they all wear protective gloves.

Christina prefers not to soak the nails, and explained that it can weaken the nail bed. She massaged lanolin into the cuticle, and pushed it back to encourage healthy nail growth. She also told me that she favours a short, square shape for nails because it’s stronger than a rounded shape, and soon after, I found myself astonished at my incredibly chic new look. The length, at around 1mm past the fingertip, would also be very easy to maintain.

Next came the polish. “A poor quality polish will bleed on to your skin when you try to remove it. This is why it’s best to invest in a quality product,” said Jade as she expertly applied a coat. “Apply a top coat everyday to preserve your polish,” Christina added. “It will dry in two minutes flat, and seal in the colour and shine.”

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