Nail Salon Slammed for Charging Overweight Customers More for Pedicures

A nail salon in the US has been busted on social media for charging their overweight patrons nearly double for the same pedicure that is more affordable for their slimmer sisters.

In what could hardly be a good move for their business, Rose Nails in Memphis, Tennessee, has displayed a sign fat shaming their clients and announcing that they will be charging them 77% more for their pedicure from now on.

Sorry. But if you are overweight, pedicures will be $45 due to service fees for pedicurists. Thank you!

Okay, let’s unpack this for a moment.

“Sorry.” — not sorry at all.

“If you are overweight” — exactly who gets to decide this? Do they weigh their clients on the way in to see which pricing bracket they fit into? Is this explained before they commence treatment? “Yeah, just so you know, you’re fat so we’re charging you extra. You cool with that?”

“pedicures will be $45” — a basic pedicure is $25.50 at Rose Nails. Overweight people get the pleasure of being humiliated for an additional charge of $19.50.

“due to service fees” — I’m not sure if these people are aware, but fat people don’t have fat toenails. It doesn’t work like that. Sure, we might sport the odd cankle now and then, but are we moisturising that far up for twenty five bucks in a shitty salon in a suburban strip mall in Memphis? I think not.

“Thank you!” — I can’t decide if this is delusionally upbeat or passive aggressive.

So naturally, as this story took hold and went viral, people set out to investigate. They found salon spokesperson Son Nguyen, who repeatedly denied that the sign was ever hung in his salon, despite photographic evidence to the contrary.

Coincidentally, he did admit that he had considered raising prices for overweight clients since they can be more difficult to service. Okay. Sounds fake, but okay.

He also said he thought it might be a good idea to bump up the price for fat people because there have been several incidents where overweight customers have broken pedicure chairs, which cost between $2,000 and $2,500 to fix.

The average Australian woman weighs just over 70kgs and wears about a size 14, depending on which brand of clothing she has on. Would she be charged a fat tax?

How did Mr Nguyen think this was going to work out? Would he be eyeballing women as they came in? Does he have a pro rata sliding scale? Could women barter with him? “I’ve only got a bit of junk in the trunk, can I get my tootsies done for $32.50? I promise I won’t break your precious chair.”

And what about pregnant women? I need to know how he intended to charge pregnant women!

Mr Nguyen is also discriminating against men, charging them an extra $5 for a pedicure. He says that men rarely get pedicures so there’s extra work involved. There is no word on how much he charges overweight men when they come for a relaxing pedi.

This is not a well-thought-out pricing scheme!

He obviously came to the same conclusion as I did, because he’s dumped his imaginary fat fee policy and has decided to flatly refuse service to overweight people instead.

This is not something that I thought would ever be a thing, I have to say. I’m not outraged, because we can all see how ridiculous this is. It’s kinda funny how foolish one man can be.

But I am tired and fed up of all the discrimination that people who don’t fit into the perfect little box that the western world has deemed beautiful face on a daily basis. People come in all different shapes, sizes, colours, ages and sexual orientations. We are all human, and we all deserve to be treated equally and with respect.

Mr Nguyen can take his shitty fat tax and shove it.

Source: Facebook and Giphy