One chair, Wednesday to Saturday, by appointment 01843 268114

King Street Margate Kent

Try the shade before you book the chair.

A one-chair studio above the print shop, with fifteen shades mixed for the light in the room. Pick one from the library and it goes on the hand the way it goes on in the chair: coat by coat, in the number of coats it actually needs.

No shade on

Bare nail

Pick a shade from the library below. It goes on here first.

Room
—
Coats
—
Finish
—
Finish

Every shade is mixed in crème. Glitter and chrome depend on the shade.

A hand held loosely against a pale background, three polished nails facing the camera

Live try-on Nothing on

The library

Fifteen shades, kept in three rooms.

Nothing is ordered in from a chart. Every bottle has been mixed here, tested on a real hand under the studio lamp, and given a number.

Warm room
Cold room
Off book

Coats are not a style choice. A one-coat black covers on the first pass; a chalky green needs three before it stops being sheer. The number beside each shade is the number you will actually sit through.

Finishes

Three ways to close a colour.

The finish is the last thing that happens in the chair and the first thing anyone notices. Not every shade is mixed for all three, which is why the chrome button greys out on some of them.

Crème

Flat, wet-looking, no particle in it. The colour is the whole event. Every shade in the library is mixed in crème and it is what you get if you say nothing.

Included · 3–4 weeks

Glitter

A fine suspended flake, pressed into the second coat rather than brushed over the top, so it sits in the colour instead of on it. Grows out kindly.

+£4 · 4 weeks

Chrome

Powder burnished into a cured coat until it turns to mirror. It needs a dark or fully saturated base to work, so the pale shades do not offer it.

+£6 · 3 weeks

Shelves of gel polish bottles along the studio wall
The wall behind the chair. Fifteen shades in the front row; the rest are retired, and Robyn will tell you why if you ask.

Prices

One chair, so one price list.

Every appointment includes the shape, the cuticle work and the time to do both properly. Nothing is a package and nothing is upsold in the chair.

  • Gel manicure Shape, cuticle work, colour and top coat on the natural nail. 60 min £38
  • Builder overlay A structural layer over your own nail for anyone who bends or breaks. 75 min £46
  • Gel extensions Built on a tip to the length you ask for. Square, almond or oval. 105 min £62
  • Infills Three to four weeks after a build. New colour included. 75 min £44
  • Soak-off and treatment Everything off, nails filed back and oiled. Free if you rebook the same day. 45 min £26
  • Repair, one nail Within a fortnight of your appointment there is no charge at all. 20 min £8
  • Chrome finish +£6
  • Glitter finish +£4
  • Hand-painted detail from £4 a nail
  • Removal of someone else’s work +£10

The studio

One room, one chair, no music you did not choose.

Second Coat is the first floor above Ashley’s print shop on King Street, up a staircase that has been there longer than either of us. There is one chair, one lamp and a window that faces the sea, which is the reason every shade in the library was mixed here rather than picked off a chart.

Robyn Ferrier has been doing nails since 2016, three of those years in a six-chair salon in Ramsgate before deciding six chairs was five too many. Appointments run Wednesday to Saturday and never overlap, so the hour you book is the hour you get.

Chairs
1
Shades
15
Open since
2021
Robyn shaping a client's nail under the studio lamp
Two pairs of hands over the studio worktop with polish bottles
A finished set of nails with hand-painted detail

Appointments

Ask for a slot.

Robyn answers messages between clients, usually the same day. Tell her roughly when suits and which shade you have your eye on.

Nothing is confirmed until Robyn replies. Point the form’s action at your own inbox or booking provider.