I'm a little conflicted leaving this review because Joy was very lovely to talk to, but the experience fell way short of what I was expecting, and the conversations with the manager Chris was worse. Based on previous reviews, looks like this has happened before. (First photo being the reference I showed).
What I requested: warm balayage with lighter front pieces in the fronts to face frame.
The issue here was that I had noticed that the highlights were a bit too brassy/yellow for my liking. There were some awkward highlight chunks, and none of the lighter pieces at the front that I had requested. I was honestly was willing to overlook it, but for $485 I figured I could just reach out to them the next day and see if maybe we could get rid of the yellow tones. They said they could squeeze me in, free of charge. Excellent.
However, when Joy saw me and did note the brassiness, she said we could tone it down. I also requested those face framing lighter pieces as I had requested initially, but she said she didn't have time for it since they were squeezing me in. Fair enough.
The end result however honestly left me to tears. This wasn't a balayage anymore. This was how I basically walked into the salon from the start. She accidentally went too dark, but reassured me that after three washes it will go back to the original as we had started. I get that, but having paid $485 to now hope it washes off? After three washes? And then I could go back, strip it off, and retone?
She told me she was going to reach out to the owner to see if they could potentially do a partial refund. I decided to also reach out just in case, and what I got instead was a defensive tone, unwillingness to work out options, and to admit no fault. I'll be honest and say I appreciate Joy's acknowledgment and willingness to remove the brassiness and try to remedy what she could, but for the owner to essentially say nothing was wrong, I got what I got, and I already got a free retone and that's the best they could do. In our conversations, at first it was nothing was wrong initially, then well we HAD to use cooler tones to cancel out the brassiness/yellow so now it'll look dark in certain lighting (no, it's just dark), and verbatim, "The photo you showed of it looking brassy idk how that happened."
Just own up that we fell short of expectations, and work with me here. For a "luxury salon," the owner doesn't give quality service, and I'm sorry Joy but the retone was awful. There is no balayage in my hair anymore.
Edit (from O's response on Google): This is only based from Chris' response. The only explanation I got from Joy, as I was there and not Chris, was after I noticed the hair was too dark and the highlights were essentially gone. She said, "Well...maybe it's just the lighting in here." She gave me a mirror, then brought me up to the front of the store and had me look again, but no. It's still dark. There was no adjustment or neutralizing the brass/yellow tones when my hair was just brought back to a deep brown. I can't fathom how this could be called "corrective" when Joy said okay, two options. 1) We'll wait for three washes, and if the deep brown hasn't diminished then we'll strip it off, and retone. First visit I had explained to her that this was for a special event for me, and I can't wait for three washes to hope for the best. 2) Let me get in contact with Chris to see if we can get you a partial refund. To be honest, what made this experience potentially one of my most horrible experiences at all the salons I have ever gone to as I rarely make 1 star reviews is the owner's interactions with me, dismissing me, and multiple times saying "I don't know what you wanted. I think she did a good job."
Joy had the right attitude about it, despite going accidentally too dark. Chris, your client communication is questionable at best read more