Hold the Glamour

This morning I went to have a manicure & pedicure at my usual nail place when I walked in and was greeted by Linda’s husband (both of them own the business). Linda was busy with their two children this morning and was due into work within the next hour or so I was told. So until she arrived, two of their employees and Linda’s husband kept themselves busy with me and one other woman who had arrived beforehand.

I always ask for a mani/pedi at the same time if possible. It just means I can get out the door faster when you add another 10-15 minutes of drying time and longer than that in the winter months (you can’t be walking out the door in thongs or flip-flops although, I have been known to do just that). I feel like I’m always racing out the door in a hurry to get home or somewhere else I have to be. Isn’t that crazy and insane?

Anyway, my pedi starts and immediately, I’m feeling better. Linda’s husband starts my mani and he proceeds to work on me and the other woman, going from chair to chair. He was removing her Shellac polish and for those of us who have had it and done it, it’s a process to say the least. I’ve done it once and it was last year some time. I personally try to avoid all unnecessary chemicals wherever and whenever possible in my life (I am surrounded by make-up and hair chemicals most days of my life and simply can’t avoid it). I love the idea of Shellac however, I have a hard time soaking my nails in God-knows-what for 15 minutes, melting and eating away at the polish on my nails! Let alone how your hands and skin feel after the soak.

So I’m sitting in my chair thinking how this man and at least two others I know about, do manicures. In fact, the woman who waxes me in Sydney mentioned during my last visit that her husband was doing a nail course so they can open their own business in nails & waxing. Times have changed – men doing nails and leaving the macho behind.

So whilst this is going on in my head, a man in his thirties walks in and asks to have his eyebrows waxed. Then ten minutes later, a guy in his forties who looked like he was in the mob walks in asking for a manicure. There was no one to work on him right away so they asked if he could wait five minutes that he would be next. Every time I looked over at him, I thought to myself how at any minute he would pull out a weapon and demand his mani ‘now’. He looked like his was getting impatient waiting. This guy didn’t seem like he waited for too many things. He even kept his sunglasses on the entire time (too much of the Sopranos for me I think).

The point of this post is this, even though all three men didn’t look entirely comfortable being in a nail salon giving a manicure, getting eyebrows waxed and getting a manicure in a traditionally woman’s world of vanity, they still did all of the above (even if one of them was doing it for money). They benefit from the experience, procedure or treatment in some way otherwise they wouldn’t do it would they? They feel better for it. They look better for it. Times have changed and isn’t it wonderful that men can do things to improve themselves and the way they look? Beauty opportunities and possibilities are open to one and all and to both sexes, now more than ever.

What do you do as far as beauty treatments are concerned?

Is there something you are doing that no-one knows about?

What beauty treatment recommendations do you have? What is a must in your opinion?