On the up: High standards
On the down: A Cut Above

I have gotten myself into a routine of having my nails painted - if I leave them nude I chew at them and it's horrible. Sooo not nice to be seen gnawing on the end of a thumb. I can't paint my own nails because everything gets smudged and one hand always looks more crap than the other.

So I'm spoilt and I pay someone to do them for me.

Recently, I've been going to real nice places in Starhill which do an excellent job for not very much at all.

BUT It's dangerous to go to nice places because then your standards go up and it's hard to have them matched if you go anywhere else...

On Saturday I decided to get nails done and seeing as I'm not allowed to drive (orders by chiro) and couldn't be arsed to travel long distances ended up in Bangsar Shopping Centre. Grace Salon was full so I trolleyed my way up to A Cut Above.

Now after all that hype about how damn good it is, all the silly press, all those fancy awards, that big fat hugely marketed book about fabulous that damn hiau woman, Winnie Loo, is I thought it would be a pretty big f**king deal of a salon.

It wasn't.

It stank.

I couldn't wait to get out.

I suppose the big self-promoting posters of Winnie Loo plastered all over the reception should have been a deterrant enough but I am such a kind, lovely person and like to give people the benefit of the doubt so I braved it and went in.

I've never been a salon with so many tight squishy corners like a fucking maze. They lead me round and round and round, turn left, turn right, squeeze past a few chairs, step over somebody's feet, try to avoid a pair of scissors stabbing into my arm into some hot, squashed corner right at the back. It being Saturday, the salon was packed out of course and you were made to feel it.

Hairdryers blowing everywhere, people stepping all over each other, stylists that looked like they just really needed a holiday, screaming kids running all over the place, trolleys in the middle of everywhere you wanted to walk. It was a fucking nightmare - everything you don't want to experience when you go for a relaxing salon treatment.

It's like a fast-food salon. My manicure took all of 20 minutes and the girl looked highly strung like she couldn't wait to finish. Having been spoilt by Snip's @ Starhill's lovely manicure corner, having your nails done off a trolley in a hot stuffy salon is NOT what you want to be paying for.

The nail colours are all squeezed onto the top of a trolley so you can't see any of the colours properly and have to pick up every single bottle to check the shades. Everything looks chaotic. And of course, no slick machine thing to dry your nails. Just a hairdryer. Which just doesn't cut it anymore. Not when you're paying the same market rates (RM30) as the nice places

It was so NOT a nice salon experience and I am never going back. I'd much rather go all the way to town, sit in a traffic jam, pay expensive parking and pay RM2o more for a damn perfect manicure where the manicurist actually looks like she gives a shit.

Winnie Loo and her fancy advertising has a lot to answer for her not so fancy salon.