The Original Salon Shaper

As part of my recent obsession with manicures, I decided to try out the Salon Shaper.

So as you can see the device comes with a pouch, an 'instruction guide', and the 5 attachment tips.

The instruction guide - which is only a piece of paper - is quite useless. And also it missed out information on one of the heads (The Diamond Tip).

However, you don't really need it because it's pretty easy to use; just stick the attachments into the top of the device and press the pink button on its side. It makes a whirring sound which is kinda scary. Reminds me of the dentist.

The five nail shaping attachments:  

L-R:

• Diamond Tip - Remove Dead Skin & Calluses
• Grinding Barrel -Smooth Thick Nails & Rippled Surfaces
• Small Grinding Cone- Shape Cuticles & Nail Edges
• Soft Felt Cone- For Polish Emery Tip Shape, Scult &Trim
• Flat Emery Head - Shape Nails & to give them a Smooth Edge 

The five attachments are not very good. The Diamond Tip doesn't really remove dead skin and calluses for me, I think its surface area is too small and it's also not rough enough to effectively file away hardened dead skin. The Grinding Barrel does work - however - it's difficult to control and you can EASILY grind away your whole nail to your flesh. I'm not joking. I think the main problem is that the motor spins too quickly, hence making it quite difficult to control! That's some serious nail grinding - you could end up with a very uneven nail surface, or even worse: paper thin nails if you are not careful with that.The Small Grinding Cone doesn't work too. I think the problem is the same with the Diamond Tip - not rough enough. The Soft Felt Cone also failed as well. You might think it would act as a nail buffer right? Because the cone feels kinda soft and cotton-ish. WRONG. Does not happen that way. It just glides over your nails, does nothing.

As for the Flat Emery Head, it works.. too well! It's rough enough to really grind stuff away, and the same problem is with the Grinding Barrel. I kinda grind my nails into some weird shapes and then I needed to grind over that so I keep grinding more and more till I have hardly any nails left! Same comment: Motor is too fast with this one. *Shakes head*.

In a desperate attempt to squeeze some use out of this,  I played around with it and ended up using the Diamond tip to shape nails - I think it works better because the surface isn't SO ROUGH, hence making it easier to control as it grinds away your nail slower. And also the Flat Emery Head can be used to grind away calluses because it's like SANDPAPER. Works best on the nasty ones on your toes! The rest of the attachments: fail. So, ok la, 2 out of 5 still can be used for its unintended purposes. At least I found some use for it.

In conclusion, this product isn't for just anyone. I think it can be useful but it's freaking hard to use! It really requires A LOT of skill to use this to shape your nails using these heads actually. I wouldn't recommend it for anyone who isn't so good with their hands or you'd end up with screwed up nails like me:

Screwed up nails after using SS

Notice my thumb and my first finger? Anyway to be fair, the sellers really did not promise fireworks and rockets so I think my expectations were unjustifiably high. Also, I do keep short nails, so that might be one of the reasons that i @#$^-ed up? I might revisit this in the future.

Verdict: * out of ***** stars. Better stick to a old fashioned file and buffer. Or if you have cash, go and just book a manicure.

The Original Salon Shaper retails for MYR30.00 from Supermodel's Secret.