Nail Tek

Would not recommend this place — you walk in and they don’t acknowledge you. You try to find someone and say — this is what I want done. They finally acknowledge you. You pick a color and … Wait. Wait. Wait. They will not tell you how long the wait is. They also all look really angry all the time. I wish I could actually review the work here but after a 30 minute wait with no end in sight, I left.

I’ve never in my life been charged 14 $ for a manicure had I known I would have not stayed. There are no signs of prices and the place is not a 14 $ manicure place. The furniture is old and falling apart and the place smells of acrylic, a very strong smell due to little ventilation. There was no massage with the manicure and I had to ask for the drying oil because it was not by the drying station. I had to interrupt another persons manicure for the manicurist to cheaply dip the brush once in the oil and put on all 10 fingers. The manicurist are not warm or pleasant. 14 $ and a day later my nail polish is already chipping. Someone would have to pay me 14 $ to get another manicure at this place.

Whatever you do, save yourself the trouble and DON’T GO THERE!!!
I recently decided to try out the place (against my better judgement) and it was one of the worst experiences. Went there last weekend to get a set of acrylic nails, the guy who was fixing it stopped midway and decided to head out for a smoke and pass me off to one of the ladies. Eventually it was done but within a week i could see it coming off and a clear gap between my nail and the acrylic one they put. At that point, i decided to just get it completely removed. The technician initially refused to use acetone and kept trying to just scrape it off with a pointed nail. Eventually they agreed to using acetone but just removed the plastic nail leaving all the glue on. To take that off and clean it up, i was asked to get a manicure done. Again, terrible terrible job. Eventually, the end result now is that my nails are completely damaged with dents etc. I cant even put clear gel or any color. WORST EXPERIENCE EVER!!!

This is my nail salon. I’ve tried a couple different places all over JC and I always comes back here. They do the best job in the area, hands down.
The place looks a little worse for wear, but if you see the amount of business they get, it makes sense. Unfortunately, they don’t take appointments, which is good… and bad. I like that I can walk in at any time, but sometimes I do need to make an appointment. They are always busy, so the wait can be anywhere from like five, ten minutes to like forty, fifty minutes.
The ladies here are super friendly, and my nail shape always looks perfect. My polish always looks good and actually lasts, and I’m hard on my nails. My feet always feel so nice and smooth after my pedi.

Do not get acrylics done here! I went about a week ago and they are crooked on my nails, have bumps on the underneath of extra acrylic the man did not sand down and he never removed the plastic under my nails from the tips. Will not come here again.

I came here for a manicure because my go to nail salon was booked and silly me didn’t set up an appointment.
I was greeted immediately and got sat down right away which is the reason for the 3 stars. However, the ventilation here is weak and the smell was nauseating.
I asked for my nails to be short and the lady cut them wayyyyy too short to the extent that it started to hurt when she was filling them. You’ll see a photo of my pinky nail where the skin is basically exposed.
The place isn’t very clean either, you’ll see nail polish everywhere and the chairs are ripped.
TL;DR this wasn’t worth a $ 14 manicure. I hate painting my own nails and I’m not very good at it either but I could have done a better job.

When I lived downtown, this was my go too nail salon. Usually I would one nail lady in the whole salon, but one day I decided to test out all of the employees, and I must say that I am happy with all of them. They are all wonderful and can do nails amazing, plus their prices aren’t that expensive.

Overall, a positive experience. The women are very friendly and attentive. They have a wide selection of polish brands to choose from. The manicure includes all the basics plus an arm massage, but there weren’t a lot of extras, such as a sugar/​salt scrub or paraffin wax. My nail polish looked very well done initially, but is started to peel a bit faster than usual. I had a gel manicure and will probably need a new one in a couple of weeks (whereas at other places I’ve been able to go 3 – 4 weeks depending on how fast my nails grow).

Love this place! I am not a manicure junkie, but Kevin did my nails about a month ago and I swear it lasted 10 days! I was amazed. Afterwards, I expected that my nails would be damaged when I removed the polish, but they were (amazingly) fine. I live in Hoboken and though we have many great places, I wanted to try out Nail Tek again (a manicure that lasts 10 days!?!). I got someone different, but she did a nice quality job — mani /​pedi. They don’t use hot towels, but their prices and quality of the job can’t be beat. The mani looks great! She «tipped» my nails with each coat so I am expecting this mani is going to last more than a couple of days.

I love this place been going there for a while I love Kevin and his wife sorry I forgot her name!!! Great service and I always leave happy with my nail results

Only Kevin does a thorough, good job. I’m never happy when someone else does my nails and a different girl did them for the first time three days ago and for the first time I have multiple nails lifting! Not happy.

I give Nail Tek 4 stars because they do an awesome UV gel set. I wish they took appointments and wish they didn’t make you wait so long, however they stayed open late to finish my nails when I had no other time to come in. I get UV pink gel fill-​ins with gel polish or french and this place is fast once they start your appointment, and my nails did not chip, break, or discolor at all before coming back (almost 1 month later!) It’s not the nicest place and could definitely use a face lift, however I tried a bunch of nail salons when I moved to Jersey City and this is the best for what I get done. I am a return customer.

Came in for a gel manicure and while they were trimming my cuticle the manicurist took out a huge chunk of my skin. I started to bleed and then I decided to leave. As I was leaving I saw that same manicurist proceeding to use the same tool on someone else without washing it.

I walked in after another nail salon and done a poor job on my manicure 3 days ago. I explained to Dee, the salon manicurist who took care of me, that I hadn’t been to Nail Tek before and I would be happy to pay to have my nail fixed.
They painted my messed up nail for free and didn’t rush it either. They went above and beyond to invest in a potential new client and I am so happy that I want to share their generosity with others in the hopes more people take a chance to try them out!
They were able to quickly color match my somewhat obscure glitter choice from my previous manicure at another salon.
What a nice neighborhood business!

Reasonably priced but messy manicure. Large selection of colors

Came here for a mani pedi with my sister while she was visiting. Our pedicures were great! I loved mine, as did she. But the manicure left a lot to be desired. My manicurist put on what seemed to be an unnecessary amount of coats of nail polish, so even after sitting under the dryer for 10 – 15 minutes, I got a smudge an hour after leaving. She also flooded the cuticle, and snipped my cuticle too close and I bled.
I got the manicure on Friday, and it’s chipping on each nail on Monday. I will never go back here for a manicure, but was very pleased with my pedicure.

This place is not to be trusted, and I will NOT be going back or recommending it to anyone.
So I went in on a Sunday for a simple manicure. It was quite busy but I had some time on my break from work. I asked «How long for a manicure?» and the first person at the first table answered «10 minutes.» Skeptical, I asked «Can I be out of here in 40 minutes?» He responded yes and gestured for me to sit down in the waiting area.
10 minutes came and went, so did 20. After almost 30 minutes I was given a seat. This is when I should have just left, but I stayed and started my manicure. Of course there was no time to paint my nails, because it had already been 45 minutes when he hadn’t even started to paint them… I was already late for work! So I said «Listen, I can’t paint my nails. I told you I needed to leave by this time. There is no way I can get them painted and dry.» He said «So don’t dry them and don’t touch anything for a few minutes.»
…anyone who’s ever dealt with nail polish should know that it doesn’t take «a few minutes» to fully dry.
I said I’m leaving, there is just no time. He said «you have to pay anyway» I asked for a discount, since all he really did was cuticles, buff, and put some generic lotion from Target on my hands (no massage). He said «No, come back tomorrow and I’ll finish your nails, i’ll be here and remember you.» Suspicious, I asked for a receipt. I had to ask twice, and after some deliberation with his workmate in Korean, finally I was given a slip of paper that read «$ 13» handwritten, with no indication of unfinished services.
Well I came back on Monday, when there were very few customers. My technician recognized me and I guess he was busy so he asked a lady to do my nails. I was kind of not happy with this either because now it means I have to tip again (since I had tipped him the day before). As she painted my nails, she used her own fingernails, which were long, natural, and filthy, to clean the excess polish off of my skin and under my nails. GROSS! I politely asked if there wasn’t some sort of tool she could use for that, and she gave some sort of offended response in Spanish, mumbling her words.
After all that, I just wanted to leave. So I just waited for the nails to be painted, got my design, and dried them and left. There are some bubbles and bumps on the nails, and they already started chipping LATER THAT SAME DAY.
I could have done a better job in my home with less risk of aggravation, infection, and for a total of $ 21 less!
Like I said, NOT coming back.

I don’t comment often on Unilocal but this place is simply not good. Was going in for a pedi and mani and had to just do a pedi due to the acrylic fumes. Place is dirty and not kept up to date. The person doing my nails were a bit rough and starting talking on the phone while doing my nails. The chairs are ripped. they dont offer flip flops unless you pay for them. Mostly i just cant take the fumes, had a headache.

I wound up here after discovering that my neighborhood salon of choice is closed on Sundays. First (and probably last) visit.
Ambiance: nondescript, generic, clean (though I was there only an hour after it opened)
Employees: this is the kind of place that the techs will chit-​chat the ENTIRE time in a foreign (Asian of some sort) language. While this isn’t a deal breaker for me, it’s certainly unprofessional, IMHO.
Pedi: tech did a good job cleaning the nails, scrub and massage were up to par (though no hot towel was used), and polish job looks good. Polish dried fairly quickly.
Price: fairly typical
So, I’d rate this place 3 stars, I’d add an extra star on for the foot massage, but then I’m deducting a star because of the following:
Man who appeared to be boss/​owner/​in charge of some sort drives up midway through my pedi, parks illegally in front of the building, and leaves his car there for a while. Apparently he feels entitled to that spot because he’s the owner? Sorry but THIS is a deal breaker for me — utter disrespect of the neighborhood in which your business is located. The block is trying to improve — that means merchants not using parking spots for themselves, but rather customers, and it means if a space isn’t a legal parking spot, not feeling entitled to it but respecting the parking rules and regs of the community.
Based on the pedi it’d be ⁵⁰⁄₅₀ if I’d return. Good enough but the place lacks atmosphere. Based on this behavior, it’s unlikely that I’d return to patronize a business who acts this way.

Went in over the weekend for a manicure. Place was filthy. When I went to wash my hands in the sink, there was no garbage can to throw the paper towel in — only a garbage bag over flowing with banana peels and takeout food containers. There were clumps of dust and hair on the floor, I actually got a little tumbleweed of hair and dust in my sandal. Gross. Dust on the drying table tops.
Quality of manicure was very poor. The gentleman giving the manicure has a small fan blowing while he was painting my nails, which dried out the lacquer and made for a thick, uneven finish to the polish. No real hand massage provided, no hot towel, and I spied only one tool sanitizer in operation while I was getting my service. All of this for $ 12.
Sorry to say, I will not be going back.