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New York City spas for kids
When I was a kid, my beauty regimen was primarily in the hands of three men: my father, who was adamantly against ear piercing; my grandfather, a retired police officer with an American flag tattoo and dentures; and Louie, my father’s half-blind barber. Queer Eye for the Straight Guy they were not. When my hair became unruly, my father would bring me either to my grandfather for a tomboy trim or to Louie for a crooked Dorothy Hamill wedge. (Thankfully, my mother wrested control away before I entered adolescence.) To think that my five-year-old daughter, Belle, can now get her hair styled into an elaborate up-do in a salon that offers strawberry-scented detangler, Disney movies on demand and sparkly manicures shows how far the world of kiddie beauty has come. With the exception of moms worried about chemicals and fumes, most agree that it’s okay to splurge on a mini manicure from time to time. The challenge is figuring out what’s over-the-top and what’s not.
New York City institutions like Bumble & Bumble and the Paul Molé Barbershop have long offered children’s haircuts, and kid-specific salons such as Cozy’s Cuts for Kids in Manhattan and Lulu’s in Park Slope began appearing in the mid-1990s. At some point, though, it was no longer enough for salons to provide bang trims in a chair shaped like a race car. In recent years, these businesses have expanded their services to include indulgences that were traditionally in the mommy-needs-some-me-time domain: manicures, pedicures, blow-outs, even facials. While the trend isn’t unique to New York City, it is, as with so many other things, more prominent here. One reason city kindergartners may feel so comfortable at the mani station is because the number of nail parlors in their neighborhood rivals that of Chase banks or delis.
“My first salon opened 15 years ago,” says Cozy Friedman, owner of Cozy’s Cuts, which has three locations in Manhattan and a line of children’s hair and makeup products. “The climate was different then. There wasn’t the same focus on children that there is today. Now, with so much attention on celebrity kids, things have changed. When we opened our Second Avenue branch in 2004, we included a manicure station because people were always asking for mani/pedis.” Similarly, places like Dashing Diva have added peewee salon services to their menus.
I don’t think I had my first professional manicure until my prom. Back then, getting a mani was something special, a womanly luxury I thought only Alexis Carrington would do on a weekly basis. I remember going to my Upper East Side nail place in my pre-children days and being appalled by moms who brought along their preschool-aged daughters. I judged it inappropriate to have a little girl—with nail beds the size of grains of rice—serviced by a grown woman. How very Bonfire of the Vanities.
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Time Out New York Kids / Issue 41 : Mar 1–31, 2009
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Me and my best friend decided to pamper our little girls for the day and took them to Dimples yesterday (July 25, 2009). We were so excited about the venture with our daughters (ages 6 and 8) and we both traveled from NJ (I had to travel for two hours from South Jersey) to give our girls a great experience. But that is not what we got. The services were absolutely terrible! When we got there, the workers were lounging in the children’s seats, doing their own nails and entertaining their own friends (granted, we were 15 minutes late, but called to tell them that). The place was hot and sweaty and we had to asked them to put the a/c on. We were the only customers at the time, and the treatments were not all that was bragged about and we were give a rush service. We told the two ladies that our daughters wanted manicures and pedicures with decorations and they also wanted facials with gemmies applied. The person who seemed to be in charge there that day was very abrupt with us and ushered off our girls to start their treatment. As we looked around and was checking out the products used, the foot polishes appeared to be moldy and dried up. These were the products that they prepared to use on our girls feet. When the facial treatment started, they used the products mentioned at their site, but there was no prep/cleaning of the face prior to applying the face mask (my daughter chose the chocolate honey, her friend had Cherry honey), which was applied very sparingly. I mean, literally they barely put any on them. Then as the lady who was taking care of my daughter went to get a clean wash cloth to wipe off the mask, the other woman walked up on my daughter and told her her services was finished and she needed to get up (without asking her co-worker if she was finished with her client. Instead she went to my child and told her to basically move). After the women was finished with my daughter, she grabbed her bag and left for the day, without any acknowledgment to me or my daughter who’s services she just provided and didn’t finish. Once she was gone, I realized that she didn’t finish the decoration of my daughters nails. After my complaining to the other worker about the bad job, she came to finish the job and them asked for payment. We were not asked if there was anything else we may want done (which she never did put the gemmies on the girls faces nor did she ask if we still wanted them). After leaving, we realized that my friend’s daughter didn’t have her face wiped off properly and she still had the facial residue and stickiness on her face. By the end of the evening, the girls nails designs and polish came off and they were left very disappointment and both me and my friend was furious! I would not recommend Dimples to anyone who wants their little girl to feel pamper. From the decor, to the services, we were terribly disappointed.
It is just fun!! Go donate to feed the hungry!!
i think it twisted to have kid this pampered and while kids in ohther countrys barely get enough food to eat.