First and foremost, I do want to say that my stylist Nicola was extremely friendly and passionate about what she does. She said she's been in the industry for 16 years so I imagine her to have a lot of experience in colouring hair. There were some service-related issues and miscommunications that really tainted how I felt about the salon as a whole.
- My appointment started 30 minutes late and no one addressed how long the wait would be, or gave me any updates during the duration of the wait. I just sat and waited until after 30 minutes, I asked how much longer the wait would be and the front desk person went to check.
- I had asked for an ombre (i.e. coloured at the ends of my hair and then blended into my natural hair upwards), half of my hair wasn't lifted of colour, and when I asked about it, Nicola said that it's supposed to be like this, and left it. The end result looked like I had gotten streaks, instead of an ombre.
- Because my appointment started late, it also went over my allotted time and I could tell Nicola was trying to speed up the process, and I felt a bit like I was rushed out and the next appointment had already showed up. There wasn't enough time for my colour to develop (the dye was left in for maybe 10-15 minutes tops).
- The styling was also not great, basically was a blowout (because she ran out of time in the end). The curls fell flat after a few hours (my own curls last for more than 2-3 days).
I was very unhappy with my experience, ended up writing a post about this on their Facebook page, and I was contacted by Caylee, the owner. She apologized for what happened and offered to re-do the service. I wrote back and explained the entire story, and then I didn't hear back for about a week. I made another post on their Facebook page (which they took down), and finally got a call from the salon to schedule a do-over.
My do-over was also disappointing. When I arrived, Nicola was saying how she thought I was happy and didn't realize I was unhappy with my service, and how if I was happy I should have spoken up. I had asked her to do an ombre and she insisted that's how an ombre was done, so I googled photos of what an ombre looked like to show her. Despite her giving me an ombre in the end, it was really terribly done - the colour started a few inches lower on my left side than on my right side, making my hair look uneven. At this point, I was too tired to care anymore and just left it at that, since my hair had been chemically treated four times in two weeks.
I keep reading these raves of Hype Hair Studio and wonder if I just got a bad stylist. I don't think my request of an ombre was that complicated, yet they gave me something completely different, and also failed to rectify the situation on a timely basis. Also the overall service was not great. For a "premium" salon, this is definitely not what I expected, and I will not be going back, or recommending this place to anyone. read more