The Way We Did it in Dallas

In Dallas (and surrounds) when you go to a nail salon and want services on your hands and your feet, you are seated in one of the spa chairs and one person is assigned to do your toes while another person tends to your hands. You are offered an array of pedicure choices that begin with a basic pedicure with 10 or 12 minutes of foot massage all the way up to 20 minutes of massage with hot stones and a detoxifying charcoal masque.

I'm going to miss that. Seriously, I am. I noticed when I went to get my nails done in St. Pete back around Christmas time that they didn't do it the way I was accustomed to having it done. First they do your toes and then you have to move out of the comfy spa chair over to a manicure table. It took all afternoon. Clearly women in Florida have lots more time to get their nails done than women in Dallas.

For my first Kissimmee trip to the nail salon, I wanted to avoid an all day excursion. I enjoy getting a pedicure. It's relaxing. Getting my hands done - not so much. Too much machinery. (Nothing with a motor is used on your feet.) Call me "high maintenance" but I like to look my best and that means well-manicured hands and feet but I didn't want to spend the better part of the day there.

When making the appointment, I specifically asked if my hands and feet could be done at the same time. The young lady who answered the phone handed me over to the young man who owned the salon. And while I don't want to be politically incorrect, in typical Vietnamese fashion, he assured me that it could and would be done, knowing full well that it would not be done.

They also have different names for things in Florida - the powder that I know as "Next Gen" is called "SNS". How would I ever know to ask for that?  But aside from the fact that you get your feet done first and then go sit in an uncomfortable seat while they do your hands, there aren't so many choices on the pedicure. Not a hot stone in sight. No masques, no bags of wax, no aromatics in the water. Although the lotion was a bit nicer than the oils that many of the Dallas area salons use.

I also noticed that the techniques are somewhat different. There were two salons that I frequented in Texas and both of them had similar processes. And everyone in a particular salon would do things in exactly the same order. This was just different. The end result looks much the same, but the folks in Florida don't seem to be as "neat" about it. But as long as they're not slopping it on my clothes we'll get along just fine.

Now, since the Florida pedicure had no stones, and if there was any massage at all, I must have blinked and missed it, I expected it to be a bit cheaper than in Dallas. (In the Dallas area, the price of the pedicure goes up in proportion to the massage time.) But it wasn't. It was just a tad more. I just may have to check out a few more places but a friend told me the one I went to was one of the nicest ones (it did have a lovely interior) and not any more expensive than the others. This will take some getting used to.