The Winner Takes it All: Super Wow - Home of the Best Manicure in the World
- Themi Alexandra
- May 28, 2019
- 6 min read
Updated: Jun 1, 2020
Living out of a suitcase requires a lot of concessions. One of the biggest is conceding to the wardrobe that you have available and accepting that you are not always wearing your favorite this or looking your best in that. I told myself before I even left Chicago that this would not be my most stylish year. This would not be your most glamorous either. Hell I willingly left both my blow dryer and my flat iron at home. I knew where I could go low maintenance and where I could not. One place I refused to go low was my nails.
I love nothing more than getting my nails done. It is one of life’s little luxuries that I value and appreciate. For even on my worst hair day, or a bad face day, I can feel put together if I have my nails done - similar to the way the right pair of shoes or a killer bag can elevate the most basic outfit. 10 digits and a bottle of polish can do a lot.
Believe it or not, getting my nails done was one of my favorite ways to experience a new city. It was something that was comforting in its familiarity and its pampering nature. And yet for something universal, it was a little different everywhere I went. I set out on RY hoping to experience one in each city, but ended up with a record of 9 out of 12. Turns out I was having too much fun in Split and Lima to make the time and I simply wasn’t in Medellín long enough.
After testing 11 different nail salons in 9 different cities and 8 different countries, there is a clear winner to my unofficial title of “best manicure in the world.” And the winner is...drumroll please...Super Wow in Bogotá Colombia! The official name is denoted with not one but three exclamation marks as Super Wow!!! Nails Experience, but I came to affectionately refer to it simply as “The Wow.”
As tempting as it may be to mock the name and the over exclamation, I can’t because Super Wow delivers on its name: their manicures are super and they did in fact wow me with the nail experience they provided. There are several locations, but I am here to rep to the Sede Principal location at Cra. 13 #78-27.
The Wow checked all the boxes: clean, colossal color selection, unheard of staying power, and affordability. Bogotá is one of the cities where the manicure price point (15,000 COP or roughly $4.50) allowed me to live my best life and indulge in weekly manicures.
I have my O'Honeys KG and Annie to thank for introducing me to the wonders of The Wow. I arrived in Bogotá on December 30th in time to celebrate New Year’s Eve with my Ohana. Shortly after my arrival I found myself Ubering over to Sede Principal to meet up with them and get our NYE nails on.
The first thing that impressed me about the place is that they put the regular polish choices on the nail tips that are usually reserved for gel colors. Something small, but revelatory. I have always wondered why salons don’t do the same display for regular polish. The Wow was impressing me with their attention to detail.
So I selected my main color and my statement nail. My tech came back with an oblong, round bottle shape I had never seen before. I turn the bottle around to find they make their own polish in house - as it’s branded Super Wow!!! I was initially skeptical not seeing my trusted names in nail polish: Essie and OPI, but turns out the secret is in the sauce.
That regular polish manicure lasted me a full seven days without a single chip. Once again I was impressed. And I can verify that this was no fluke. My subsequent manicures held up to the same standard. Part of the fun in going weekly was getting to sample their incredible color selection. I fell so hard for a color called Cinnamon that I ended up buying a bottle and bringing it home.
“Nail art” is one of my favorite Instagram rabbit holes to fall down. However, most nail salons won’t do nail art on a natural nail or with regular polish. And if there is one thing I abhor, it’s a gel manicure. The thickness of the polish gives me a case of claustrophobia. Then there’s my commitment issue: I don’t want to wear any color for two weeks. The fun for me is in switching up my color weekly. I had resigned myself to admiring nail art from afar.
That is until The Wow introduced me to the wonderful world of digital nail art on my third visit with impresion de uñas. They have a a digital printer for your individual nail bed, printing essentially a sticker on top of your polish. I had never seen anything like it! Yet again the Wow was impressing me - this time with their leading edge technology. The possibilities are endless with hundreds of design options to choose from - one nail bed at a time.
For my first foray into art, I went with a pre-selected concept that featured fuschia nail color and two white statement nails per hand: with one nail featuring “Time is Now” word art and the other featuring a minimalist portrait of Frida Kahlo. I loved the results and I was immediately hooked on this new wonder of my nail world. The art costs 3500 COP per nail (~$1.05) so even with four printings, my manicure still came in under the $9 price point. Affordable, wearable, art: I was all in!
I began to look forward to my weekly ritual. I enjoyed the leisurely 15 minute walk south that leads to the quiet semi residential street that houses this neighborhood jewel. I enjoyed the ambiance of the salon, lively but not overly loud, with consistently good music playing. They were always playing some mix of American pop music. No matter where we went in the world, the one constant you could count on is American music. As a music lover, I was excited for the opportunity to get exposed to new music, but more often than not, I found myself among the familiar.
Over the course of the month, Super Wow had become familiar. The places that come to feel like your own on the road are special and Super Wow was one of mine. It had also become somewhat of a roommate ritual for KG and I. We went together on our last Friday night in town. For my final manicure at The Wow I went with pink nails and one statement nail per hand of the most awesome tropical floral print: art worthy of an Instagram story.
KG ended up leaving ahead of me without the mani of her mani/pedi combo due to the salon getting overrun by a children’s birthday party of no less than ten grade school girls. We would meet back at the apartment to begin our packing party for our last transition day.
I walked home from the salon at dusk as that Friday night feeling started to take over the city. As I headed north up Avenida 15, I remember feeling so at peace. I was leaving Bogotá on good terms. Even though I knew I never gave it the fair shot it deserved (See Against All Odds) it was one of the cities that felt the closest to home in terms of daily life and my routine while living there (See Working for the Weekend).
One of my longest held rituals is Friday night pizza. Our Friday night pizza order was a bedrock of my childhood and something that I continued as an adult (because...pizza). On the walk home I ran into KG outside the Dominos. We had talked about placing an order at the salon and she decided to pick it up on her way home instead of waiting on delivery. Running into someone you know on the street is commonplace in the city you live, but on Remote Year it is a delicacy to savor. Walking home together with our dinner in hand felt like a slice of home.
And perhaps this is what surprise me the most reflecting back on my time in Bogotá: is how much it felt like home. And if my weekly manicure at Super Wow taught me anything it’s that home isn’t just where you lay your head at night - but it can be a feeling you get - sometimes in the most unlikely of places.
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