I love getting pedicures. It doesn’t matter to me if the nail colour selection is poor; if the removal of cracked heels is good, and the massage of the calves and feet is good, then the nail salon is a to-visit-again in my books.

A new nail salon opened near my apartment a few days ago, and since it was offering a 20% discount on all services, I thought I’d give it a go. Everything was brand-new, and more importantly, the place looked very clean. They had foot spas connected to luxurious massage chairs. They had OPI and China Glaze. I was sold. It didn’t matter to me that the nail people barely spoke English. I wanted it.

Everything was okay, I was enjoying a good massage from the chair and the mini jacuzzi at my feet, until the actual pedicure began. To my utter disappointment, instead of using only nail files on my dry heels, the pedicurist whipped out a corn plane and began shaving at my heels. For those of you who are not familiar with a corn plane, here it is:

I had a very bad experience with this when I was in Bangkok with Beetrice a few years ago. We had a pedicure at one of the better salons (better = at least not dodgy-looking like most of the others), and the pedicurist just went home with the corn plane on my heels. She was so vigourous with the corn plane, that she nicked my heel and it bled. I had to hobble the rest of the trip because the nick became a really bad sore. Needless to say, I avoid salons that use corn planes from then on.

So back to my story with yesterday’s pedicure.

To give the pedicurist some credit, I’m glad she didn’t go nuts with the corn plane on my heels. She held my foot up and shaved like she was peeling carrots. Next came the foot file. She didn’t do a good job with that one, and after the pedicure was over, I left the salon with rather peely heels 🙁

My point is: as much as you can, avoid the corn plane. If done wrongly, it can nick your skin. It’s worse if you don’t know if the salon sterilises their equipment properly. Go nuts with a foot file instead. In Malaysia, I frequent a nail salon called Nails Hansen in Penang, and they do a fantastic job with different foot files, which remove all the cracked bits. My feet always feel like a million bucks when I left that salon. Yesterday’s experience, they felt (and looked) like a buck twenty.

Second point is: talk to the pedicurist and let her know what you want/don’t want. I made the mistake of not telling her to not use the corn plane. She doesn’t speak much English at all (although at one point, with my jeans hiked up to my knees, she caught sight of my legs and asked me “Miss, you want wakshing?” [waxing]) but I should have at least indicated to her I did not want her to use the corn plane. Mum was right. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

Now I’ve got to get back to fixing my heels. Sigh.