The KOVA Method
This isn't a standard manicure
It's a Russian e-file manicure — a specialist technique that takes technicians months to master, and the single biggest reason your nails will look totally different from a typical nail salon.
What it actually is
A precision machine, not a hand file
A Russian e-file manicure is performed with a specialist electric nail machine — the same category of precision tool used in advanced podiatry — fitted with fine carbide and diamond bits chosen for the job. It is not a hand-held metal file, and it is not a standard manicure with an extra gadget added on.
The technique originated in Russia and Eastern Europe, where it's the professional standard, and it has since become internationally recognised as the highest level of precision nail care available. The entire service is performed dry — no bowl of water — because soaking swells the cuticle and hides exactly where the living skin ends and the dead tissue begins. Working dry, a trained technician can see and remove only what needs to go, millimetre by millimetre.
That precision comes from the technician, not a setting on the machine. Every technician at KOVA is carefully selected for the highest standard of professionalism, and each one is trained meticulously in this technique — speed, pressure, bit selection, and angle all have to be exactly right, every time, on every nail shape.
Anatomy of a manicure
What you actually get
✦ Precision Cuticle Work
Using specialised professional cutters and e-file bits, we carefully remove non-living cuticle and dry skin from the nail plate and surrounding area. This creates an exceptionally clean finish and a properly prepared surface for product application.
See how this compares to a typical manicure →Side by side
How is a KOVA manicure different?
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Business Model
💅🏻💅🏻💅🏻 Typical High-Volume Salon
Built around walk-ins, high appointment volume and fast turnover.
💅🏻✨ The KOVA Approach
73.4% of our clients return to KOVA, allowing us to see how our previous work wore and take responsibility for your results over time.
Nail Recovery
Built for nails that need it most
Before
After
If you bite your nails, you already know the usual advice doesn't help — and a rushed, generic manicure can make bitten nails look worse, not better. The dry e-file technique isn't built around a healthy, full-length nail plate; it's designed to work carefully with whatever nail is actually there, however short or uneven, without soaking it soft first.
A structural BIAB overlay is then built up gradually over the natural nail rather than glued on as an extension, giving bitten nails the shape, strength and protection they need to stop being picked at while they grow out underneath.
This result is from just one correction. For longer-term recovery and ongoing hand care, we recommend our Nail Recovery Package.
View the Nail Recovery PackageAfter SNS & Acrylic
If your nails need to recover
Long-term SNS or acrylic wear — especially when it's removed incorrectly — can leave the natural nail plate thin, dry, and peeling underneath. It's more common than most people realise, and it isn't always something you're told about at the time.
Plenty of salons will simply apply the next set of product straight over damaged nails rather than raise it with you, because pointing it out costs them a booking. We'd rather tell you honestly what we're seeing and work with you to help your natural nail recover — with gentle dry preparation, no soaking, and a proper BIAB structural overlay that supports the nail while it grows back out, rather than just covering the problem up again.
Explore Our PackagesPedicures
Hygiene first, always
Before
After
A pedicure isn't just about how your toes look — it's a hygienic procedure your feet need year-round, not only once sandal season comes around. Skin build-up, dry or cracked heels, and thickened callus don't take a break over winter — closed-in shoes and colder weather often make them worse, which is exactly when feet tend to get neglected most.
We treat every pedicure as a proper hygiene procedure, not a quick paint-and-go: careful attention to problem areas, thorough treatment of built-up skin, and the same unhurried, precise approach we bring to hands.
The honest question
Isn't a drill damaging to my nails?
It's the question we hear most, and it's a fair one — a badly handled e-file absolutely can damage the nail plate. That's precisely why training is the whole point of a specialist salon: our technicians use low speeds, light pressure, and bits matched to the job, working on dead tissue only, never the living nail bed.
Done properly, by someone trained specifically to do it, e-file is far gentler and more precise than the rushed, generic handling nails often get at a typical salon — which is exactly why we built the salon around it, using it alongside careful hand tools rather than offering it as one option among many.
A lot of the horror stories about e-file come from exactly this: drills used incorrectly. At a typical salon offering it as a side option, a technician might run the bit too fast, press too hard, or go over the same area repeatedly — which is what actually thins and overfiles the nail plate, not the tool itself. Every KOVA technician is carefully selected and trained meticulously in this technique specifically, continually refining pressure, speed and bit choice, precisely so none of that happens here.
Instrument safety
What actually happens between every client
Disinfection
Workstations, trays, and every surface are wiped down with medical-grade disinfectant before your appointment begins.
Sterilised
All metal tools — e-file bits, nippers, pushers — are cleaned, then sterilised in a medical Class B autoclave between every single client, and opened from a sealed sterile pouch in front of you at the start of your appointment.
Single-use, disposed
Files, buffers, gloves, masks, and orangewood sticks are single-use only, opened for you and thrown away after your appointment — never reused.
We only ever use professional-grade products, chosen on merit rather than tied to one supplier.