I'm writing this review to hopefully prevent others from having to go through anything like what I did at this place. If it was possible to leave negative stars, I would. This was my worst experience with any hair stylist in my whole life, by far.
I made an appointment with Katie because my regular hair stylist had to cancel at the last minute, and I was attending a wedding that weekend (so I couldn't wait to reschedule with my usual person). I booked with her because of all the positive reviews posted recently (should have paid attention to some of the older, less favorable ones) in addition to being easy to get to and the organic product line she (supposedly) uses.
Katie seemed to have a good understanding of what I was looking for (matching my roots to the rest of my hair, but with a cooler color tone and lightening of my eyebrows), but from the moment she actually started on my hair the whole experience was a disaster. First, instead of neatly sectioning my hair and applying what turned out to be bleach (rather than color) in a systematic way, she just began slapping it right on and applying it in a very haphazard fashion. After doing a few spots, this meant that portions of my hair were stuck together so to try to get all of my scalp she literally began ripping sections of my hair apart. This was uncomfortable to say the least, and led to her having to apply bleach THREE times to try to get all areas of my scalp. Despite this, she managed to miss a number of spots (see pics), the worst of which is a stripe about 2" long on the back of my head.
While I was in the chair, her fiance came in and made his way back to where she was mixing what I thought was color. I wasn't paying that much attention to their interaction at first, but after being back there for several minutes, I did turn to look and heard her say something like, "You're not hearing me...". After this, she came back out to me with the bleach, and was clearly trying to encourage him to leave. At this point it became painfully obvious he was under the influence of some substance, and was *not* wanting to go. After several attempts by her to get him to leave, he pinched her arm and gently pushed her. This was taking place immediately behind me (she was actively trying to work on my hair as this was happening), and I became very scared that this was going to turn into a physical altercation, with me caught in the middle in this vulnerable position. Fortunately, he finally relented and left.
After this came the dryer to help activate the bleach, and almost immediately I was overwhelmed with the unmistakable stench of ammonia. The smell was so strong it burned my nose and I could barely breathe. So, organic, non-harsh chemicals? Clearly not. Also, while she had me in this very vulnerable position, she walked out of the salon. She didn't say a word to me as she did this, so I had no idea where she was going or how long she would be gone. She did come back fairly soon, but with no explanation at all.
When she was removing the bleach from my eyebrows, she managed to pour water over my left eye. Fortunately, I already had my eyes closed so I didn't get bleach in my eye, but I know there *was* bleach in that water as I felt it burning my skin slightly before she finally handed me a dry towel after I asked twice.
She did the second application of bleach to my hair at the sink (after shampooing out the first round), shampooed *that* out, then took me back to the chair, applied the *third* round to try to get the other spots she had missed, then put me under the dryer *again* (and left the salon with no explanation, again), and then finally shampooed the last round out. I have never had my hair shampooed so many times in a single salon visit. Also, at one of these visits to the shampoo bowl, her fiance came BACK IN, making me very uncomfortable.
Finally, she was drying my hair and all I needed was a trim of my bangs. She did this in just a couple snips, leaving my bangs with a very blocky, messy look (as other reviewers have also mentioned). Really, I could have done a better job if I had just done them myself.
After all of this, as I was paying she told me she didn't charge me for the eyebrows. Really, you *didn't* charge me for almost potentially blinding me in my left eye? Gee, thanks.
To add insult to (nearly literal) injury, the color looked okay in the (fairly dim) salon, but when I arrived home I saw it was nearly white, and *significantly* lighter than the previously done portions of my hair. I looked like a complete freak! It was so bad, and I felt so self-conscious, that I put bronzer (yes, what you normally put on your face; was all I had at that moment) in my hair at work for the rest of the week. I *would* contest this charge with my credit card company, but that would mean giving this woman a chance to try to fix the situation, and I would NEVER subject myself to being anywhere near her EVER again. read more