Sauced In New York Sometimes the food is in the sauce, sometimes we are
Last week, I was getting a much needed pedicure (side note: I’m a pedicure whore, having no loyalties to one place over the other and will stop at any clean-looking place whether it’s located in strip mall or a spa) and just as my feet hit the water, in walked a father and his (very) young son. You’re a guy and you want to get a pedicure? Fine. I see enough gnarly male feet in the summer to know that at least half the men in my life could benefit from a good soak and scrub. You’re a dad and you want to bond with your eight-year-old son while you both get your toes buffed? Go for it. But there should be a separate room for the boys at the nail salon.
I want to read my magazine, maybe gossip or chat with the woman who’s bringing my feet back from the dead, and I don’t want to do any of those things with boys around.
When I lived in Mexico, there was a little salon a few blocks from my apartment in Providencia (a neighborhood in Guadalajara). I walked everywhere so my feet needed a lot of TLC and I’d go and practice my Spanish while my feet were made pretty again. But I showed up one day and this American guy I had met through friends (and who I was supposed to be going out on a date with in a few days) was there getting a manicure. WTF.
It wasn’t the manicure. It was that this was my space (and my time) and I felt like it was being invaded. Was I meant to chat with him? I had to whisper to the woman who was supposed to wax my eyebrows to please do it mas tarde because while getting a pedicure was one thing, I was certainly not going to get my eyebrows waxed in-front of this guy. A little mystery please.
I’m not saying that male grooming is unacceptable (although it’s kind of a turn-off if a guy takes more time than me to get ready and/or has more beauty/hair products than I do), but I don’t want it done at the place where I get my grooming done. Is my thinking out-dated? Should I just get over it? Are unisex salons where couples can get mani-pedis and their eyebrows shaped together the way of the future?
Anna, I have had one pedicure in my life (and loved it!). Un-buffed I was lined up with all these other very buffed women at this rather upscale salon in Great Neck NY, when a man waltzed in and sat down what seemed to be his own personal chair. I, who have worked with men all my life, and who like men (particularly cavemen who read) STILL thought; WTF?
What’s next? Unisex bikini waxes? I can’t believe unisex salons would be the rage –after all, we want to present the finished product — not the process — to the rest of the world and to whatever our target audience is!
I like that: “We want to present the finished product – not the process . . .” So true!