Pedicure Treat

Today I went to have a pedicure treat for myself. I am due for one since my last one was a month ago and my new nails are showing halfway up to my toes. Besides, I'm heading to Arizona for a business trip next week. Toes need to be exposed on a 120f weather. Exposed toes need to be pretty. :-)

Rates are pretty standard at $30 for a mere regular pedicure. There is a massage chair with a foot soaker. Lotions, oils, callous removers, hot rocks and a warm towels are used to enhance the spa like treatment as your toes are treated by the gentlest Vietnamese touch. After the treatment you get to wear the foam slippers and have your nails dried under an automatic dryer.

Massage chair with foot soaker...ahhh nice!

I can't help but compare a little bit on prices of services from back home. Mani pedi from back home can go as cheap as $3 for the whole thing. Of course this all depends on where you are having it. One thing I know though is that it can't be more expensive than $10. I used to have mine by this small place by the wet market in Imus, Cavite where my friend Virna used to bring me. There is a manual at-home soaker too with foot scrubs and lotions.

as opposed to at-home foot soaker from back home

The materials used were a pink soap based cuticle remover, a red-orange tinted solution called merthiolate. It even gets rubbed on your heels to get the freshly pedicured look. Every once in a while, there are accidents from the nipper clipping. But that is what the merthiolate is for as this is initially intended as antiseptic (which apparently, before this post, I didn't know is already banned for containing mercury and could potentially be harmful. So beware my friends!) ;-). Method of drying is via au naturele air drying.

Still mani pedi's were so dirt cheap we can afford to have them as often as it is safe to have. Virna used to have her nails painted every other week with the most unusual colors such as metallic navy or metallic lavender or plum.

Virna has since then moved to Australia. I don't think she gets her usual bi-weekly mani-pedi's as often as she wanted to. After all we don't have maids like we used to and our mani's will be destroyed with all the house chores that we now do ourselves. But often we both get fascinated how huge the price difference is. Surely the massage chair and auto-drying machines are significant investments to these businesses. However, I don't think it's amount is substantial enough to justify the cost of having these services.

Therefore it all pretty much boils down to cost of labor. The advantages of being back home means not having to do things for yourself. Surely there are things that are worth doing yourself, but mani pedi is definitely not one of them.