Waited a few days to review so I could give a fair estimate, but in the end feel that what I got was really not up to par and could have easily been done better. I called last Thursday to make an appointment, Anthony told me to come in for a consultation next day as I had a specific color and style for it in mind. I come in, he directs me to Rina, and I explain to her I wanted to redo what I had done last August at another salon (but which I did not go to this time as I moved and now live only a few blocks away from this one), which was bleaching about two to three inches of hair just in the front from the tips up to where it touches my face and I wanted it to be a cold, pale blonde, no yellow. I showed Rita a picture of what the color looked like in my hair from the day I got it done last time, which was one uniform color from tip to face, again about 2-3 inches of hair in length and maybe 1 inch width on my slightly longer than shoulder length hair. And I asked to have an inch cut from the back, but tapered rather than straight across.
So she does her thing, it takes a couple hours, but she let the bleach sit for only about 15-20 minutes, which seemed too short to me compared to what I remember it taking last time I did this for it to reach the color I wanted, but she's the professional and I trust her since I had shown her the exact color and what my hair should look like with it so I had no reason to think there'd be any confusion about the color it should come out looking like. After washing it out, applying toner, etc. she does the cut and blow dries my hair. She did a flat cut in the back, no tapering, and the color in the front is pretty much a dark, dirty blonde. Sandy blonde highlights really, with silvery tips. Initially I thought well maybe this will look different in different lighting, and Rina assured me when I washed my hair the silver would "lighten". That sounded like bullshit, but I say ok, she's the professional, she knows what she's talking about right? I paid $120, including 20% tip, altogether. I washed my hair that night, next morning it's still silver, this is some Olivia Newton John 1980s Nice Girl color, not the pale, white blonde I wanted.
I called back to say I really wasn't happy with the color (no real reason to mention the error on the haircut since we can't really redo that without losing more length) and Anthony said come in today (Saturday) so I go back and again fortunately I only live a few blocks away otherwise this would've been a even bigger inconvenience that it already was. I sit down and again pull up the picture of my hair the day I had it done last time to remind her what this color is supposed to look like, she says "well what I did is I feathered the color." I didn't ask her to "feather" the color! I wanted one bleached color, and a hard line, ending right where my face starts, she did it as soft highlights because I guess she thought that would be better? So I tell her I really wanted a uniform color and paler than this, my hair is a very light brown turned from natural blonde anyway, it's not that hard to bleach my natural hair color right out anyway, she said so herself when she was redoing the color a second time. I never dye my hair and I only use baking soda and apple cider vinegar on it, no harsh shampoos, my hair is healthy and there's no reason this should be hard to achieve. She reapplies the bleach, but she seems kind of distracted which is curious considering both times I was in the salon there was never more than one other person besides me being worked on. Again, it's a Saturday, and memorial day weekend too, they don't seem too busy, no reason why she can't devote her full attention to getting this right with a second chance.
Big red flag: she's washing my hair again and applying toner and says 'oh well for some reason the bleach isn't taking,' something to that effect, 'normally this is easy on lighter hair,' and her whole tone is insinuating there's something wrong with my hair, like really? It's my naturally light brown/dirty blonde hair's fault that after being bleached TWICE it's still not light enough? Sure, it's my hair that's the problem, riiiiiiight. Off to blow dry again, it is lighter than before but the color is still NOT even and uniform, and on one side it's slightly higher up on the hair than on the other side. I point that out to her and she seems exasperated and goes 'well I didn't use a measuring tape!' Well maybe you should? Maybe careful attention to detail is part of this job...? Since I'm basically being spoken to like an annoying child who's bothering her I decide 'ok, we're not going to get any further here' and bounce. It doesn't look bad necessarily, certainly better than the first time, but I spent $120 and 4+ hours here and it's still not really what I wanted, and what I wanted was pretty simple. read more