No sense in judging a salon by a stylist, but remember: consider your stylist, as the salon doesn't cut your hair. In my case, the salon - and second stylist - made up for the the initial disappointment.
This was my first experience with Joe Bae. For the past 4 years, I've seen Ho Ming Woo (now at Salon Refine - I highly recommend him!). I decided to experiment with a new salon as I recently moved to Bellevue and had a baby, which means that I have little time to get my hair cut, especially when the hair cut entails traveling to Seattle . So, I decided to try out a well-rated salon in Bellevue.
I booked an appointment with E. Morning of, the front desk manager called to say that, unfortunately, E was sick. He offered me two options: 1. rebook, or 2. a different stylist. Since my calendar was packed for the next few days and a spare set of hands for the baby weren't forthcoming, I chose #2, and ended up seeing a stylist named L.
At the beginning of my appointment with L, I started feeling a bit nervous. I showed her a few pictures of the hairstyle I wanted her to adapt to my head -- the same set of pictures I've been showing my regular stylist (and two other stylists, who I saw while overseas) for the past three years.
So that you can read my experience and judge for yourself, here's a little background info about my hair and my approach to living with it. Blonde-ish, Irregularly wavy, side part, no coloring, no blowdrying, products, or styling. The most I do is bobby pin or pull it back when I exercise. I'm no purist. I grew up as a serious gymnast and never learned what to do with my hair other than corral it into a ponytail for 18 hrs a day. Now, I delight in an easy to maintain cut that allows me to roll out of bed and look about as put-together as I get.
Back to the pictures I showed L. They depict two different tousled, slightly-below-the-chin layered bobs from all angled, Different stylists have adapted these cuts differently, which is cool. I trust professional judgment combined with artistic inspiration. With some layering/razoring/face-framing tehcniques, I've always left other salons quite satisfied.
Let me go back to my nervousness. When I sat down in L's chair, I was having trouble finding the pictures -- they were somewhere on my phone, buried beneath 57,048,028 or so baby pictures. I apologized, told her I didn't want to hold her up, and asked if it mattered whether she was the pictures before or after washing my hair. She quietly said it didn't matter. After a bit of probing, she acknowledged it would be slightly better to see the pics before the wash.
This marks the moment when I realized -- to my dread -- I was working with a stylist who felt sheepish about letting me know what she needed to do a good job.
I tried to comfort myself, told myself that I hadn't received an objectively bad hair cut since Fall 2006 when, at the beginning of grad school, I tried out a training salon in Lincoln, NE.
L was kind and sweet. After the cut, she blew dry, straight iron-curled, and hairsprayed my hair. It looked cute, and she clearly has a talent for styling hair. Her styling aptitude is so impressive that, at least for me, it made it difficult to objectively assess the cut itself. So, I reserved judgment and waited for my hair to return to its "natural state."
Once entropy set in later than evening, and even more so following a shower and air dry, my husband laughed about my "bad helmet" and enjoyed pointing it out whenever, to whomever he could. Not only was my hair cut about 1" above (vs below) chin length (something I'm willing to forgive, as it can be hard to judge length when cutting wet hair), but the right side was significantly shorter than the left! Rather than appearing textured, layered, and stylishly "piecy," my hair looked as if I'd tied it into pigtails, sawed off each pigtail with dull blades, and let the remainder hang loose. Chunky. Blunt. Yikes.
I did a little research about what would be appropriate to request of the salon, and the next morning, called about a "salvage" appointment. The front desk manager encouraged me to schedule that appointment with L so this could be a teaching moment for her. While I appreciate the value of learning from one's mistakes, I also see the value in learning through observing more competent colleagues. I didn't pay salon rates to subject my hair to trial and error.
I explained that I didn't have much hair left to experiment with, and asked for a more seasoned stylist -- which, apparently, was E, whose earliest availability was 2.5 days later.
E - also charming and thankfully feeling better - did an admirable job of salvaging my hair cut. Now, while my hair is shorter than usual, it approximates the cut I wanted (and the cut I have, for the last several years, received).
I appreciate how Joe Bae handled this situation, and need to do some soul searching about whether to try again vs. return to my favorite Seattle stylist. read more