ETA- I am lowering my review to 1 star as it has come to my attention that others' similar experiences to mine are "not recommended." I've also had several people reach out in DMs that didn't write a review to thank me for sharing my experience because they got the same treatment or worse. There's no excuse. Potential customers should be wary of such behavior and treatment of customers.
Colleen seems like (ETA: she tries to be) a good person. She runs her business out of her home but with a separate entrance around back for the business part. She is good at electrolysis, which is what I used to get from her, but she also does permanent cosmetics (which I never tried). Ultimately I stopped using her services partially because it was a lot of money but mostly because I personally just felt uncomfortable so many times that it wasn't worth it for me to continue to use her services. So, details:
I got electrolysis from her for about a year and a half. She did a good job. She offered a free initial consultation where she explained the process and did a small patch of hair. I got a good initial impression. She was conscientious about pain and made the process as comfortable (physically) as possible. She had the best price in town as well. She was great with organization and making and keeping appointments. She accepts cards, which is very convenient.
A couple things though. She plays at a low volume K-Love, the Christian music station, the whole time. This makes me very uncomfortable as not only am I not religious at all, but I find the music quality to be absolutely atrocious. I mean, gospel I can handle. That's got some soul. But Christian rock? Blech.
Secondly, and perhaps the most off-putting, was the amount of times she scolded me as her customer. Here's a few examples for you. Once, I ended up being about 10-15 minutes early. So I went to go wait in the backyard lobby area until my appointment time. But it was locked. I was confused, unsure if I got the appointment wrong. I called, no answer. So I went and rang the doorbell because I thought I heard her inside and figured I'd just check with her really quick. If I made a mistake, I was planning on leaving. I made to leave, but right as I was getting in my car, she opened up the back gate (the entrance). She totally freaked out at me. Like over and over again mentioned how she could lose her business license if people come to her front door, compared it to going to my dentist's home if the office was closed (like that could even compare to someone running a business out of their home who was supposed to be open during that time??), and just harped on and on about it several times over the course of the appointment. After profusely apologizing, explaining myself, and reassuring her that I wouldn't go to her front door again, I finally just told her, "Colleen. I get it. I apologized. What more would you like me to say? It won't happen again." I had already explained my confusion to her several times! I was really turned off by that. Who does that to a customer??
She also scolded me one time because I accidentally walked in to the office with mud on my shoes. She *never* had me take shoes off and I just didn't notice at all. Completely my bad. When she noticed as we were ending the appointment (politely the first time) I apologized profusely. I felt awful that I had made a mess and been so inconsiderate as to not have checked. After the fourth or fifth time of her mentioning how next time I need to take my shoes off, how I should leave them at the door, how she was going to have to sweep now, thank god she had a little time to sweep before her next client, yada yada yada... Well I stopped feeling so bad after that. No amount of explaining to her how bad I felt and apologizing could make her stop scalding me for it. It was a frickin' accident, lady. Would you like me to sweep for you? Those kind of things just come with the territory of running a business. You never treat your clients like that!
She scolded me yet another time because I had put on makeup in the morning, just having fun with it, before my appointment. (Do NOT put on makeup before your electrolysis appointment if you can help it.) "Why would you put on makeup?? You knew you were coming here. I mean, I understand in the afternoon if you have makeup from the day but [scoffs]... now it's just soooo inconvenient for me to remove it." Omg, Colleen! Ok! I got it the first time after I *said* I got it.
Finally, and least important, her office itself is very outdated, or was when I was going. Perhaps she has updated it now. I feel like it's stuck in the late 90s-early 2000s.
Overall, it was just not an enjoyable place to be, both with her uncomfortably spastic behavior and habit of berating me as the customer (and I confirmed with another electrolygist - I'm not the only one) and the physical atmosphere. read more
