If you
haven’t been to the Yamama Centre in Zamalek in a while, you may not recognize
it now. The entire centre has been revamped and voilà, it almost looks like a
decent shopping mall – or at least the first two floors do; everything above still looks dodgy. Though most of the shops aren’t that interesting, the
beauty salon on the first floor is.
Jacques
Moreno is a large beauty salon divided into several sections. The first area is
the hair salon, which is spacious, very clean and chicly decorated. Haircuts cost
80LE and a blow dry will set you back 60LE. Further down the hall, you’ll find
the pedicure section on your left side. The pedicure area is made up of a big
couch with comfy cushions. You can take a seat here and put your feet inside
the little bath. The salon also has a few treatment rooms, one of which is for specialised treatment for facials, and the other is equipped with a shower
where you can rinse off after a sugar or wax treatment.
Even
though this reviewer’s feet have been permanently tucked away in warm Ugg boots,
the pedicure was too attractive an offer to refuse. The manicure was also
sampled; as typing all day can be an absolute killer for your nails. When you
sit down and put your feet in the nice warm water, your hands will be dipped
into a small bowl of warm water for your manicure.
The pedicure (40LE) is very
thorough with lots of scraping and cutting. After your nails are trimmed into a perfect
shape, you can choose from several different colours of nail polish. This
reviewer opted for a French pedicure. The white lines were applied neatly and the
toes looked perfect. For the manicure, (35LE) the staff got a little creative.
Initially, we wanted gold nail polish but we were advised to try a French
manicure with a gold line instead of a white line so that it would look less tacky.
We also tried their sugar treatment, which can be very painful depending on your pain threshold.
To ease the pain, talcum powder is used. After the treatment you can take a
shower, which is very much needed.
Though
we did enjoy our treatments, apart from the sugaring that is, there are some
minor things that Jacques Moreno could change in order to make it better. We
would have loved a big, fluffy towel after the shower instead of the small one, and
it would have been nice if more oils or creams had been used with the pedicure.
Apart from that, we had no complaints and would happily return to Jacques Moreno
for more treatments.
