I'm not sure I've ever been more disappointed with a haircut in my life. I had an absolutely…read moreterrible experience at Looking Glass. I was optimistic about my visit because I had a pretty good experience two years ago when the salon was on Maine Street. This time, I needed the dead ends cut off of my hair and wanted to have my layers touched up. My hair was quite long, and I knew that I'd lose quite a bit of length because I hadn't had it cut since August. When I arrived for my appointment (made the day before) in the late afternoon, no one was out front. I walked in and a few moments later a woman walked out, surprised that I was there. She asked me if I had an appointment, and then saw that I did, but told me they had closed early so no one else was there. She asked me what I was looking to have done, so (as I had on the phone) I explained that I wanted a shampoo and cut. She asked me at least three separate times for what I wanted, to the point where I said I had spoken to someone named Stacy on the phone yesterday and explained what I wanted to her. Turns out it was actually her, and I guess she had no recollection of anything we discussed or even the fact that I had an appointment.
I sat down in the chair for my shampoo, and for the next twenty minutes was essentially berated for the quality of my hair. First, she noted that my hair knots up really easily. Which it really doesn't... I have straight, relatively fine hair that is pretty easy to deal with. She was attempting to run a "wet brush" through it and was having a difficult time, probably because the bristles weren't strong enough to really grab in and hold up against whatever loose tangles were in my hair. Instead of just working through it, she brought up my hair "knotting up easily" at LEAST three more times. She then proceeded to make the following remarks while looking for a reason that she was having so much trouble: "I put a LOT of conditioner in it." "Have you brushed it today?" "You must put it up a lot." "You must blow dry it every morning." "Do you put a lot of product in it?" I don't know why she had such a hard time with it, because no one has ever struggled to manage my hair. Anyway, once she started actually cutting it, she switched to making remarks about how DRY my hair is. Over and over and over again. She told me I wash my hair too often, use the wrong products, wash it the wrong way. I love to get advice on beauty-related things, but it's nice if they come as gentle suggestions rather than blunt remarks/criticisms. Isn't the point of going to a salon to feel beautiful? I felt anything but once I left.
Every time I've had my hair cut elsewhere, a shampoo is always paired with a blow dry. Just makes sense. This time, I was immediately informed that having my hair dried after the cut would cost TEN additional dollars. So I said I'd pass. I appreciated the heads up, but thought that was a pretty ridiculous price jump. At the end of the cut, she kept asking me "are you sure you don't want it dried? I don't want to send you out with wet hair." I was damned sure I wasn't going to pay an extra ten bucks at that point. She gave it a once-over with the blow dryer (to clear her conscience?), and then I was done. At that point, alarm bells were going off in my head, so I wanted to get out as quickly as possible.
When I got home, I decided to use a wet-to-straight tool to style the cut for myself. From a distance, I was fairly pleased with the outcome. Then, to my horror, I looked in the mirror and had a friend take a picture of the back. My hair, not only much shorter than I thought it would be, looks like a damned agricultural terraced field. It seems that Stacy cut my bottom layer by several inches, to the point where it aligned with my shorter blended layer. Instead of cutting that layer to match, it seems as though she just snipped at random so that my top layer is now roughly 1/4 inch shorter than the bottom and not blended at all. And when I say "roughly", I mean that a drunk person could have done at least as well if not better.
All in all, after the way I was treated during the cut, I was at least hoping for a decent outcome so that I could forget it and move on. Instead, I'm wearing my hair in a bun until I can find someone I trust to fix it because it's literally embarrassing. Worst haircut of my life.
