If you are looking for ash/cool toned hair, DO NOT go here. :( If you just want warm brown hair, feel free to go here. Gary is a nice guy but not very good at doing ash brown hair.
My friend liked Gary and recommended me to come here so I made an appointment. First red flag was that he was painting my hair AND 3-4 other girls at the same time, so he was painting my hair SUPER fast and carelessly in a rush. I thought it was a bit weird that he was working on so many people... but I feel guilty easily, so I thought "ok, he's gotta make that dough$$$ somehow". I think one of his stylists John quit recently so he was understaffed, but he should have then said there aren't enough colorists available, rather than overbooking and giving people bad results. My current hair girl (Tina Park at Duet Salon) works on ME and ONLY me during our whole 1 hour coloring slot and it feels SO nice and relaxing after this experience)!
To preface this, I came in with VERY red hair (see my photos) because my brown salon dye hadn't been redone for almost a year and turned red! I told Gary I wanted dark brown ash and I stressed how I REALLY wanted ASH/COOL hair and NOT warm/brown reds. He said "we can definitely do that in one session. We have very high standards here. I am confident we'll get you where you want to be. I think you'll be very happy" and I was like "YESS AWESOME - ONE SESSION? THANK YOU WOW never heard of a salon that can do it in one session!!!" (this should've been the second red flag - I've never heard a salon promise they can get you to ash brown in 1 session ESPECIALLY since I was soo red).
After he painted my hair sloppily and the bleach/toner was washed out, I noticed a couple strips next to my face were bright blonde still and pointed it out - he retoned those strands and then waited a bit again before we washed it out for the final hair color.
Third red flag... The lighting in the salon is pretty yellow/dim (even in the day time), so by the time I finished at ~7pm, it was already dark outside and I couldn't see my hair well! But when he finished, it didn't really look ash? But I honestly couldn't see clearly. He said it looks good and I thanked him and told him I'll check in the morning and let him know! WHAT A SURPRISE I woke up to in the morning after I paid $450... my hair was SOO blotched and streaky.... had multiple colors of my old red, then green, random blondes, etc. Not ANYWHERE close to the dark brown ash I asked for. I was immediately shocked and sent Gary pics of all the streaks and colors and he told me he would fix it so I made an appointment again (he acknowledged the issues so knew he made a mistake).
Looking back, I would have asked for my money back 100% but I like to give people second chances (big mistake)! I ended up coming back TWO times after the first (3 times in total) for him to try and fix it to get to my dark ash brown hair color, and I STILL WASN'T THERE... mind you, his salon was ~25-30 mins away from my apartment in SF, so I spent a lot of time and effort going to/back from his salon 3 times (1 hour in an Uber for each visit + $25 in Ubers each time + time taking off work on Fridays).
After the second time, my hair was like a RED BROWN, which wasn't at all close to ash brown (see my pic). I would never spend $500 to get warm brown hair color - my previous hair person can do that for $100.
When I came the third time, he actually sent me to Kelly, because he somehow couldn't figure out how to get me to ash brown... KELLY IS SUPER NICE BTW! I think she is more talented than Gary for ash so I'd recommend her! After the third time though, Kelly got me to a cool / silver tone, but my hair had a LOT of blue streaks in it for weeks (she used a lot of blue to cancel my red to get to ash), and I felt SUPER self conscious about my blue hair because I work in a very professional environment :( but it wasn't her fault the hair was bad the first two times.
I think what pissed me off the most though is that he PROMISED me my hair goal in one session and couldn't even get it after THREE sessions so he over promised and never delivered lol. It's VERY important to set expectations when providing any type of customer service and explain why you may not get to your hair goals so the customer isn't disappointed later. When I came the third time, I jokingly said "ha I hope I don't want to come a 4th time so hopefully we get it right!!" and Gary said "there can't be a 4th time, it's a lot of time and effort for us since we're working on your hair for free". That pissed me off a lot - I literally said "uh its a lot of time and effort for ME... IM the one that paid almost $500 for TERRIBLE streaky hair and had to take time off work and come via Uber THREE different times." Are you forreal?!!
Anyways I just wrote a freakin novel so the TL;DR is don't come here for ash brown hair unless you want streaky AF hair. Check photos for my experience :) read more