SOAK Bar + Beauty South Yarra

Incredibly disappointing experience at Soak. Travelled with a friend to Melbourne for a deluxe pedicure, was charged $150 each (only had two drinks), didn’t receive the foot scrub advertised, was seated on a bench seat as opposed to a massage chair, had rushed and rude service, and was kicked off my seat before finishing my drink immediately after the pedicure. It did not at all feel like a “deluxe” experience. The room was also extremely loud with everyone talking. Will never be returning, much prefer my $50 pedi in my hometown where you actually feel like VIPs.

French girl, Cindy, looked after me today for all the treatments: Full pedicure, half leg wax. My first time experiencing the concept of having a drink, alcoholic or not, whilst being pampered. I like the idea. Today just a sparkling mineral water. Next time, I'll try the popular Pomegranate Sour cocktail, which sounds delicious. The strip waxing was done in a private room. Excellent result. The pedicures are handled in the public area along with other clients. It was okay! I thought I'd mind, but I didn't. Today, it was good to see two pre-teen boys having their first time pedicure experience, courtesy of their mother. Get them early, I say! Appointment was handled through the Fresha app, including payment and future dates, including making sure Cindy looks after me again. The only complaint about Fresha I have is the virtually daily reminders of one's appointment; really not necessary.

I spent 4 hours and a little over over $350.00 at Soak for a consultation, pedi with shellac and mani with builder in a bottle. I only had one tea. I don’t normally spend that much on my nails but it was for my wedding, my appointment was three days prior to my wedding. The one positive was that my nails looked beautiful …for a day. I had issues just two days after my appointment and my wedding day was three days after my appointment… the extensions on my nails were already lifting from the cuticle end so my hair would get caught when I washed it, this normally only happens to me when my nails are 3 weeks old. And the night before my wedding a nail fell off, I was adjusting my stretchy knit pants, nothing too impactful and it just popped off. It obviously wasn’t put on properly. I didn’t mind at the time but the employee doing my pedi took a personal call during my appointment and the employee during my mani was coughing the entire time as she just had the flu, 3 days before my wedding this made me extremely uncomfortable. Soak advertises a premium experience and that definitely wasn’t my experience, on the first day of my honeymoon I had to spend further time and money in the nail salon getting my nails taken off because one is missing and they’re all lifting. I couldn’t even keep my nails for a week. A lot of money spent on a very poor experience end to end.