I normally don't leave Yelp reviews, and this is actually the first time I've ever written one…read morebecause of a hair salon experience.
I usually go to another salon that I really like, but the owner had an unexpected situation and I needed to get my hair done, so I decided to try Big Ben for the first time. I saw many positive reviews for Lyn online, so I felt comfortable booking with her. Ben, the owner, also seems like a genuinely nice person. Unfortunately, my actual experience with the service was extremely disappointing.
During the bleaching process, Lyn set a timer in front of me. The timer went off, but she did not come back because she was busy cutting another client's hair. I tried making eye contact with her, but she still did not come over. Quite a while later, she finally came back and told me she had been waiting for the shampoo station. I honestly don't understand why my hair needed to continue sitting in bleach while waiting.
After the bleach was rinsed out, I could already tell something was very wrong. When I gently ran my fingers through the highlighted sections, a lot of my hair was breaking off. Lyn told me this was because the hair "molecules" were still open before the color was applied. However, even after the entire coloring process was finished, when she was cutting and combing my hair, I continued seeing a significant amount of the highlighted hair breaking off and falling out.
The initial color was also completely different from what I wanted. Some sections looked gray/white and made me feel like I suddenly looked ten years older. She tried to adjust the color afterward, but I ended up spending more than six hours at the salon and still did not leave with the result I had asked for. There are also strange bands near my roots with noticeable orange tones instead of a smooth, blended transition.
On top of all of this, a large amount of hair dye was left on the back of my white T-shirt, and the stain will not come out. I was honestly shocked that after the severe breakage, the color issues, six-plus hours at the salon, and my damaged shirt, I was still charged $300 for the "service".
I understand that highlights and bleach always involve some level of damage, and I'm not expecting hair to remain completely untouched after lightening. But there is a big difference between normal dryness and watching large amounts of your highlighted hair actually break off while it is being combed.
If you care a lot about the health of your hair, I would be very cautious about where you choose to have bleaching or highlights done. Unlike a haircut, you cannot simply redo chemical processing a few days later if something goes wrong--the hair has already been compromised and needs time to recover. Unfortunately, I really regret choosing this salon for my hair this time.
