A Manicure For All Seasons

TO BE honest I’d no more considered booking into a nail bar than using a womens' toilet.

Nails just didn’t seem something a bloke needed to have done, but when Harvey Nichols suggested I have a manicure I thought why not?

I’m usually unfazed by most of my assignments, but I was more than little nervous sitting at the Champagne Nail Bar on the store’s ground floor.

"I was soon joining in the gossip about the wedding the other client was attending and discussing the merits of colonic irrigation"

Luckily my nail technician Libby immediately put me at ease reassuring me that - although they are a minority - men in Leeds do have their nails done.

I did have to confess to the ever patient Libby that I have something of a phobia about nail files, and particularly the horrible rasping sound they make that really sets my teeth on edge. I even have to ask my partner to stop, or go in another room, if she files her nails while we are watching the box.

But Libby is a professional using the best quality nail files so it was not only blissfully silent, but strangely soothing as she attacked the talons masquerading as my nails. Soon not only did they have a definite shape, but also my subconscious nail biting had been cleaned up.

Meanwhile, I was soon joining in the gossip about the wedding the other client was attending and discussing the merits of colonic irrigation. I can now see why the beauty industry is the epicentre of indiscrete revelations.

One of my hands was then dumped into a soothing finger bath while Libby attacked years of dead skin around my cuticles, and I was astonished at the amount of dead cells she was scraping off. Dr Frankenstein could have fashioned a new hand from my off-cuts.

The final flourish was some clear nail polish, and as I stared down at my shiny new fingernails I was almost tempted to ask for coloured varnish as they looked so good.

The manicure costs £32 which seemed good value if the results are so spectacular, and Libby recommended I should have my nails done at least once a month. I’m not so sure I’d have it done that regularly, but certainly with a few weddings coming up I’m going to give it another go.

Bookings can made at the Champagne Nail Bar located on the ground floor of Harvey Nichols , Briggate, Leeds.

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