La Créme Spa

Well —
I walked in and this place was empty —
I asked for a pedicure — the girl said its $ 28 and they would not soak the feet !! What kind of a pedicure is it? Then she said $$ 50 to soak the feet — well okay I said fine — I sat then she showed up with tools for manicure — I said no I asked for pedicure — she said oh I am sorry I did not hear — then I said how much is the PEDICuRE! She said regular no soaking $ 48
Are you kidding me !!!
She also said they charge to buff your nails —
That must have been a joke —
Well I walked out and she was left alone again with no customer. I went to JT nails on Fillmore St paid $ 20 for a wonderful pedicure and they buffed my nails for free :)))))

This place is the definition of unhygienic. I was here with a few other girls for mani pedis. They had a very poor nail polish selection, and what they had looked like it was years old and crusty. A mani pedi was $ 45, which isn’t awful, but they gave me the worst manicure I’ve ever had. They didn’t even buff my nails to a shine (I did without polish, too). When I asked them if I could buff my nails (to not look like they had been scratched with sandpaper) she said it would be an up charge. The pedicure was painful, as my nail tech stabbed me. My toe hurts, and I really hope it’s not infected. Also, everyone was super rude. The technicians moved better me and my friends without even washing their hands or tools. This is my first Unilocal review. I created an account just to make sure no one goes here and gets a communicable disease.
If you want someone else’s foot fungus and warts, come here!

Holiday Party Disaster! They definitely did not make our party private as promised. Customer service is horrible and our nails look even worse. Definitely try to avoid this nail place and if you looking for great nail salon to go to visit Miracle Spa and ask for Stephanie.

My coworkers and I decided to have our holiday party at La Crème because it is close to our work on Fillmore St, and therefore easily accessible. What a mistake. We tried to make it fun but it ended up being such a terrible experience.
They advertise a «spa party» on their website. Other than being a «holistic and natural» (it was far from this) experience, the online listing didn’t mention anything in detail about what a spa party entailed, so we called as suggested on the site. They told us that they would stay after closing to accommodate us (6 people) but that the only requirement was each person would have to spend $ 45 dollars (a basic mani and pedi is $ 45). They said we could bring our own drinks and food. We were asked to leave a card on file (which we assumed was to secure a reservation). There was no mention whatsoever of HIDDEN FEES and CHARGES.
We arrived and one of the people in our party couldn’t make it (she has a newborn son), and they told us (before letting us sit down or set our drinks and food down) that we would have to pay for her $ 45 dollar limit and that she could use the gift card in the future. This was never mentioned to us previously, I’ve never been to a salon OR spa (and I work at a spa) where you a charged the entire price of a missed appointment.
Still we tried to make the best of it since it was our holiday party. When we arrived there were three other pedicures taking place with walk in clients they decided to take. What happened to the promised, exclusive «spa party?» Total it took 3 hours for us to get our mani and pedis completed (only 2 of us decided to get the full mani and pedi) and the rest got either a mani or pedi and put the rest of the $ 45 on giftcards to use later. There were only 3 nail techs working for 5 of us, (and they expected all of us to get manis and pedis at the same time). The workers seemed so over worked and miserable, one of them literally had a scowl on her face the entire time. It was so hard to have a good time and make it a pleasant experience.
I would never willingly pay for a service here ever again. Unfortunately, we were forced to pay. 3 of us left with cuts and open wounds from incorrect usage of equipment. The environment is highly unsanitary, the technicians were bouncing from client to client without even washing hands. The bottles were all coated and dirty, I didn’t even want to soak my feet in the foot bowl because I doubt they disinfect it correctly. The tools did not come out of autoclaves or plastic packages they were just dirty tools laying in a dirty basket. As estheticians, we were appalled by the lack of hygiene here. The nail jobs were terrible, they did the bare minimum and were not pleasant about it either.
Avoid this place!

I went here to get a manicure on a Sunday when my normal place had a super long wait. The décor always looked super cute from the outside. There were only 2 people working there. My manicurist was nice, but my nails looked like I had done them myself; my cuticles were super messy and there were bumps on them. Someone else re-​did them after I pointed out the problems which was nice, but they still did not look great. And it was an $ 18 manicure!!! For that price, your nails should be flawless and it should be an amazing experience, which it was not. I absolutely will not be going back.

At this moment I’m here waiting for my pedicure on my lunch break hour for my appt. When I walked in, the receptionist looks surprised. I told her I made appt and she told me to wait for a little bit. Right now, it’s into 10 min wait and the girl is still not in yet. Receptionist and another lady is working on a client already. Sigh. I should have walked out. I’m on a time crunch and I can’t get my nails done since I work early and after work I have to run home and pickup my kid from daycare. If they can’t gtn’d your confirmed appt then it’s useless to even making an appt. I have to rethink about recommending this location at work if anyone ask for mani and pedi in Japan town area. Sorry ladies! Sometimes waiting for only 15 mins does make a difference to some people.

I love the décor and the tea they are serving.
But the girl there has really bad attitude. They charged me for taking off my old gel nail when I’m getting a new one from them, they said it’s because I got the gel nail from other place.
And guess what, I’m here again to take off the gel nail I got from them and just have some color instead of gel, they charged me for taking off the gel again. This time they said it’s because I am not doing a gel from them!
They just wanna charge you more in every way they can! Unbelievable !

I really wanted to love this place because of the cute shabby chic décor! But man, I will never be back.
My boyfriends cousins have never had a mani before so I thought for their first experience, this super cute place would be a good choice. Made an appointment for 4 of us early in the morning for 3pm. We were running late from traffic so I called ahead to reschedule. They told me they will check their schedule and call me back. I never got a call back so I called to double check. Turns out she rescheduled me for 4:15 without even notifying me. When I reassured them that there is 4 of us, the lady over the phone said ‘well, it doesn’t take long for a mani.’ At this point I had a bad feeling already, but how bad can it be right?
We arrived early and the lady at the front desk was quite friendly. We sat down for our manis and they said they were running behind. Our nail techs sped through our manis and did a horrible, streaky job. They were also running around and I had 2 different girls do my nails. Oh well no biggie. But I felt almost as if I was doing them an inconvenience for being there. Super awkward and the nail techs were super annoyed and rushed. I mean, if you were too busy to accommodate all of us, why didn’t you just let me know? We could’ve rescheduled.
We end up all having to go home to re paint our nails ourselves because of what a streaky terrible job they did. For $ 18 a mani, I was expecting much better service than this. Did I mention my cuticles are everywhere too?
To wrap this all up, spend your money and time elsewhere. There are nail salons that charge $ 10/​mani that will treat you with way more respect than this place would.
Also, apparently the $ 5 off Unilocal offer is not valid after 4pm, but NO WHERE does it state that.

I really wanted to give this place more than 3 stars. Truly.
Pros
1. Comfy chairs
2. Nice selection of polish
3. Friendly staff
Cons
1. For a $ 30 pedicure i was expecting at least a longer stronger foot massage
2. Only 2 staff members on a Saturday afternoon
3. $ 30 pedicure is the cheapest they have
I get that the place is trying to go for a shabby chic unique style … but just because you paint the walls pink and have an eclectic variety of chairs doesn’t mean you can charge more for an average pedi.

Cute and unique little nail spa.
My friend and I were looking to kill some time before dinner so we decided to Unilocal the closest nail spa to us at the time. We were excited to find a nail spa within walking distance from Japantown! The wall color inside this nail shop is bright pink which sort of reminded me of a candy shop. We had to wait about a good 30 minutes before we were able to get our pedicures. They don’t have the typical massage chairs (which I was hoping for), but instead they have couches and little round bowls for you to soak your feet in. Pedicures here was good; nothing to complain about. My pedicurist gave me a great foot massage! The girls are super sweet here! Would definitely be back if I’m ever in the area and need a pedicure! :)

Loved. Loved. Loved it! This place is adorable. The pink walls, the music, the décor and the kind staff. I bought a living social voucher and even though it wasn’t properly administered, the spa saw me last minute on a Sunday anyways. I’m in love. Thanks la crème for my gorgeous pink nails. See you soon with all my girls since I’ll be the envy of all of them. Yay. Thanks :)

My husband bought me a groupon for a mani/​pedi here for our 6-​monthversarry of being married. It’s in the neighborhood and convenient from my after-​work bus– super thoughtful.
I called before the holidays and before a major trip overseas to schedule my groupon mani/​pedi. After I told them I had a groupon, they said they were entirely booked. I thought that was weird because I often walk by and they’re not busy at all… On my bus ride home that night I noticed that there was not a SOUL there getting their mani/​pedi and it was open. Weird.
Ok– I was frustrated but I let it go. My groupon expired, I got back from India, and decided I’d treat myself to a mani/​pedi on my day off using the remaining voucher value of $ 24 and fully intending on paying the difference. I called to make an appointment, made the mistake of telling them I’m a groupon customer, and they told me that they will not be able to take my voucher since it was a holiday– MLK day. Nowhere on the coupon did it list MLK day as an exception to the voucher value.
This business uses preferential treatment toward non-​groupon carrying customers and does not abide by the legal-​binding print listed on the vouchers they put out there.

The final finished product was fine. But the process was treacherous. I bought a groupon and after calling forever, I finally just went in to schedule an appointment. After waiting about 5 minutes to schedule, I just asked to leave a number and be called back. Twenty minutes later she called and then we «got disconnected» which led to another visit (after 12 unanswered calls). Then they demanded an email address to make the appt… you get the picture.
But once I got there, it was better. However, I did feel very rushed. It’s not so relaxing to have your mani and pedi at the same time on a couch. I couldn’t adjust my legs without interrupting the mani which was on my lap and the angle was quite uncomfortable after a while. But the décor was nice and the music was great.

I have never left a Unilocal review but my experience with La Crème motivated me to create an account to leave this review. I wish I could give it a better review because it is so cute on the inside and has great potential. Unfortunately, however, my experience with La Crème warrants this one star review.
I recently purchased the Living Social deal for a mani/​pedi at the salon. My own fault for not reading the small print of the deal but it was only available for use Monday through Friday. About a week after purchasing the deal, I showed up at the salon one evening around 6pm with a friend who had also purchased the deal. We were turned away because we did not have an appointment and we were also told that two individuals who had each purchased the Living Social deal could not come into the salon together at the same time to receive their services.
Since that initial attempt, I have called La Crème on four separate occasions to schedule an appointment to redeem the deal and each time, it has been impossible to schedule an appointment. It seems as though during the week, only one to two manicurists work and every time I called, I was told that they were either booked or offered appointments at 10:30am or 1pm the following week. The times they gave me each time were extremely un-​accomodating and I am absolutely shocked that this place is ever booked because of their customer service.
In addition to never having at time that was after 5pm, the receptionist was never kind or apologetic for their absurd scheduling issue. My deal ended up expiring before I was able to use it because of their poor scheduling.
Unfortunately, though this place is very cute and in a great location, I will never go back and am very disappointed that I purchased the deal to La Crème.

I was waiting to review to see how long the manicure would last. But here it is a week later and my fingernails have not chipped, so that is about 3 days more than most manicures, so Kudos La Crème Spa on that for sure.
The experience was odd overall. I had a Groupon for a mani/​pedi. When you call about an appointment they are very picky — you must give them the Groupon number, and they warn you there is some Mysterious charge of $ 3 (not sure why, but hey it is only $ 3…but then again it IS $ 3 I was not warned about when I bought the Groupon).
Also on the phone they want the Groupon number and warn you that if the appointment is not cancelled 24 hours in advance you forfeit the Groupon. Fine.
The you show up early for your appointment– and (of course) you have to wait about 20 min past the appointment time. They wanted my email address, I did not want to give it, and convinced the desk gal (finally) that I REALLY did not want spam from them. She relented. Then during my pedi — the owner came up and said (basically) they would not process my Groupon without it. That seems quite strange. If I ever get an email from them, I am changing this to 1 star.
They started with my feet, but about 3 gals switched around and worked on them. Funny too, they set a timer so they know how long the massage should last — never seen that before, but I suppose it is fair.
Then my toes are done, and I am waiting, waiting for the manicure to start. Finally a gal comes over and starts it (she says how busy they are). Then once my nails are done (pre-​polish) she asks me to wait. I said okay for a little while, b/​c I did have to be downtown in 45 minutes. About 15 minutes of waiting and she starts my polish, but in between coats she rings people up. So not very «spa-​like» but maybe the wait in between coats is why it has lasted.
As other Unilocalers have said, this place really needs to work on its customer service. I usually go to the nail place around the corner on Fillmore, and will now go back to them.

I really wish I could give this place no stars but alas I cannot.
WARNING: Salon admitted to double-​dipping!
So I almost never go anyplace that has less than 4 stars but I was desperate for someplace somewhat close and it was also convenient because of the Groupon promotion for a Brazilian wax.
I researched this place before calling in and saw that there were so many horror stories but then I read that in 2013 they were under new management, so I guess you could say I was feeling hopeful? Well, I don’t actually know if this new management thing is true or if this business is just flypaper for horrible businesswomen, but the telephone experience was pretty dreadful. The woman was completely uninterested, unfocused, and seemingly confused.
Now I have walked by this place quite a bit and it’s never busy, but since I read the reviews on here talking about their requirement to book an appointment if you used Groupon, I did just that.
She continued to say that because I could walk there, «I could come over and wait to see if they could fit me in.» I thought that was amusing.
As a former Aveda cosmetologist, I asked what kind of wax they used. Then I went straight for it and asked them if they double-​dipped…
She spent about 5 minutes trying to figure out what I was talking about (are you kidding?) then I finally had to explain to her that double-​dipping is when one double-​dips the same (albeit used) spatula into the wax pot… (in plain English, cross-​contaminating the wax pot with other women’s bacteria and germs, etc).
The woman said that they do, in fact, double-​dip, and said so several times.
EEK! I informed her that that was a health violation, completely unsanitary, and totally unhygienic. She didn’t seem to care.
I am going to ask Groupon for a refund. This place is not a good business, not appreciative of new clients, not concerned for their safety or health, I mean… They don’t care about jack.

I bought a Groupon for a mani/​pedi because the salon had decent reviews. I figured i’d be able to get an appointment within a few days of calling, but their earliest opening wasn’t until a week later.
I rushed to the salon after work and arrived a few minutes early. I was immediately told to sit and wait. After about 5 minutes I decided I should probably pick out my nail color so I could be ready when the next person was available for me. My appointment was at 5, and after waiting for almost 20 minutes without being acknowledged at all, I asked the lady in charge how much longer I’d have to wait. She told me another 5 minutes…
At this point, I was frustrated and annoyed. I nicely asked if I could simply reschedule my appointment because I had to be somewhere at 6:30 and I didn’t think I’d have enough time to get there since my mani/​pedi hadn’t yet begun. The owner was extremely rude and told me to «wait» — she also kept saying «we do same time.» When I asked what she meant by this, she just kept repeating the phrase over and over. I explained to her my time constraint situation and still she refused to let me reschedule. She told me that they could do my mani/​pedi in 30 minutes instead of my scheduled hour time slot. When I expressed that I didn’t want to have to rush, she still rudely insisted I wait. At this point I had waited nearly 30 minutes for my appointment to start.
The actual mani/​pedi (not done by the owner) was average quality. I’ve definitely had way better.
Overall, the customer service here was the WORST I’ve ever experienced from a nail salon and I would NOT recommend this place to anyone. I never write Unilocal reviews, but I am right now because of how poor of an experience I had at La Crème.
The salon is decorated nicely and looks cute, but that’s basically the only positive I left with.

Quality of work — mediocre
Service — bad
Work — the pedicure was just ok, I did like the oils and lotions they were using.
The shellac wasn’t great quality, uneven nail filing, and diagonal and straight strokes.
Service — really not kind.
1. Disrespecting clients — I had to go and move my car because it was taking too long so the lady asked me to leave something behind so I wouldn’t run away (really? in a place like that)
2. I haven’t realized I needed to book an appointment in order to use the groupon, and I don’t expect them to change their policies for me, but the lady could have shown more consideration, as I’m sure other places would (her attitude was more like: no, you can’t use it, it’s your problem). And for the record, I did try calling to make an appointment and their phone was not working all day (and she agreed with that but still wouldn’t agree taking the groupon)
Plus the prices are high, I really don’t think anything about this place justify the prices.

Should have checked Unilocal before I purchased as it seems it is par for the course to have horrendous customer service!
I purchased a Livingsocial deal and told my sister to buy one as well so we could go during the week. We called to make appointments, even though I have been by many times as I live in the area and it is often empty in the middle of the day during the week which is when we were trying to schedule for.
I asked for two appointments at the same time and they asked me if I had a coupon, once I said yes I could tell by her voice it was all down hill. She seemed completely annoyed that I would even want to come in… isnt that why businesses do those deals? To try and get new customers?
Anyhow, she told me and I quote «We can only do it if you take one appointment for 12 o’clock and another appointment at 5 o’clock.» I actually laughed because I was sure it was a joke. It was not. She was completely serious. I was speechless.
The conversation went on and it did not get any better, their customer service is really just as bad as Unilocalers warn about!
I have asked Livingsocial for a refund already and will never try this place again.

I made an appointment for a wax 2 days earlier and I was seated on time. This was my first time getting a wax and it wasn’t so bad as I thought it would be. The lady who did my wax did a great job. She was quick and that made it less painful for me. She used Tea Tree Cream wax. I was satisfied with the outcome of it, so I decided to purchased their wax promotion. I can’t wait to use my promotion deal in the future and I won’t forget that they only accept cash for tip. Since I was rushing to get ready for my planned dinner, I forgot to give something but I will not forget upon my next visit to the spa.
From my experiences with La Crème Spa I have never had a bad experience. I do remember the first time I went to La Crème Spa, I had a voucher from Groupon for a manicure and pedicure. I was treated with great customer service. I love the scented products that they used during the procedure and the scrub. They have nail arts as well and I always get one on both of my toes. As a result my manicure and pedicure lasted for 2 weeks, because I knew how to make the nail polish last longer. To be honest it could have lasted longer, but it was my choice to remove it. Anyways I’m glad to have finally found a place where I can get my nails and waxing done to my satisfaction. Although I do not live around the area, I don’t mind the drive.