Mile High Manis

MW Nails

As beauty concepts go, MW Nails, is flying high.

The newly launched salons, based in Holborn and Spitalfields, bring 70s Pan Am-style decadence to the standard nail bar. The concept stores are immaculately designed and the attention to detail is genius. From the authentic, striped airplane seats to the custom built curved interior – taken from an American Airlines Boeing 737 – complete with cabin windows and illuminated ‘fasten your seatbelt’ signs.

Entering the ‘arrivals’ area, you’ll be presented with a boarding card and whilst your bags and coat are stowed in the overhead lockers, choose your shade, from a well-stocked selection of the hottest OPI and Essie colours. A vintage departure board is positioned overhead offering the full range of treatments, all in fabulously named tongue-in-cheek style, such as The Mile High, Taxi ‘n’ Take Off and Ground Control.

Equally as fabulous as the salon’s jet-set stylings are the treatments themselves. If you’re late for departure, opt for the Shanghai Shape, a perfect but speedy shape and polish or with plenty of time to prepare before take-off, choose the Captain’s Cockpit, a transformative deluxe 70 minute manicure that is finished with a Two Weeks To Tahiti instant-drying Shellac polish.

Make your way down the aisle to the first class lounge for a pedicure, where original Air France First Class seats have been raised and reworked with an inbuilt foot spa.  Tray tables come in handy for refreshments and magazines, or act as the perfect mobile manicure station for those have a mani-pedi. The signature Tokyo Toes treatments will have you clipped, buffed and polished within half an hour.

MW Nails Departure Treatment Board

Oh and not to forget the nail technicians. Dressed in pristine air stewardess attire they are attentive, perky and thorough.

This is one beauty experience with absolutely zero turbulence.

MWnails, 3 Chichester Rents, Chancery Lane, London WC2, 020 7242 4555/ 111B Commercial Street, London E1, 020 7247 0288. www.mwnails.com
Manicures from £12 (Shanghai Shape) to £101 (The Mile High). Pedicures from £16 (Honolulu Hopper)