A bustling social scene sets a new kind of nail spa apart

Mikael Coyiuto, a diminutive figure attired in a crisp, open-necked shirt with a smiling open face, isn’t your typical beauty buff. Busting gender myths wasn’t part of his plan when he decided to open a nail spa with head-to-toe services (like waxing and facials). Coyiuto, the son of successful beauty entrepreneurs, didn’t have a problem entering an industry primarily populated by women and gay men.

“The girls I know are always complaining that they don’t have a one-stop shop where they can go and have their nails done and everything else,” Coyiuto explains at the launch of his nail salon Beauty & Butter in Megamall. “They need to go to a spa for a facial, the parlor for waxing and a nail spa for a mani-pedi.”

Coyiuto figured that creating a concept that answered all these needs, save getting a haircut, was the key to his business plan.

Designed to appeal to a young market, Coyiuto’s spa is the antithesis of your typical relaxation hub. Instead of soothing Enya-inspired tunes, Zen furniture, babbling electric fountains and slumber-inducing dimly-lit interiors, Beauty & Butter goes in an entirely, not-unexpected (for this generation, at least) pop direction. Graphic images blown up to the width of the room adorn each wall. Primary-colored lounges, offset by black seats and aluminum fixtures (a hidden sink can be found underneath tufted footrests at each station), create a feeling of being in a Korean pop record shoot, a feeling enforced by the multiple flat screens projecting of-the-moment music videos. Top 40 songs blast out of hidden speakers.

A black glass-topped nail bar dominates the front of the room. Shaped like a U, the nail bar is designed to encourage customers seated on bar stools to mingle or chat with each other — a marked change from spas known for curtained-off spaces and hushed attendants that create a feeling of tranquil privacy.

At Beauty & Butter, the space invites people to approach what is typically sacred personal time as a social event.

If the colorful surroundings aren’t enough to curtail your ennui, the nail spa lends out iPads, stocked with games and episodes of TV shows like How I Met Your Mother, Glee and Gossip Girl.

It’s a carefully-curated world that Coyiuto has conceptualized, devised to lure blog-reading, Blackberry-messaging, Twitter-savvy young folk with short attention spans.

But is it successful? Does it speak to the market?

Well, this the third spa he has launched. The first two, located at SM Mall of Asia and SM San Lazaro, have proven successful enough to expand the brand further.

The rates are more than affordable and the treatments plentiful.

Beauty & Butter offers services that range from massages (P700 for a one-hour full body session) to facials (P350 for Bye Bye Blemish, designed for acne-prone skin) to waxing (P220 for eyebrows, P600 for the bikini line and P900 for the whole legs) to manicures (P180) and pedicures (P500 with foot spa) to nail art (P300).

Hair extensions, at P200 a pop, are also available for the follicularly-challenged.

Nail art, for those predisposed to Harajuku or, um, Gwen Stefani-inspired style, draws in clients as few nail spas actually offer the service. A collection of designs are available to people to peruse. “Or you can bring a sketch or peg that the artist can follow,” Coyiuto suggests.

At P300 for classic styles and P600 for designer (one assumes the complexity of the design is the basis for the cost), it’s not inexpensive — but for Blackberry-toting kids with cash to burn and time to socialize, it’s probably money well spent.

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Beauty & Butter is located at 5/F Megamall A (tel. 470-4239).

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Follow me on twitter @bealedesma or email me at jackieoflash@yahoo.com.