Total nightmare of a salon. There were red flags from the moment I walked in - almost every stylist had stringy, overprocessed, hair. I can't imagine any central London salon allowing their stylists to show up to work looking like that.
The salon itself is small and crowded. I was seated at a station and had the hair from the person sitting next to me blown into my face and belongings. They didn't provide hooks for bags, so I had to put my £5000 purse on the dirty floor. It ended up covered in hair and having bleach dripped on it, and the stylist jammed her cart over it.
The salon advertises as organic, but none of the styling products they were using were organic. I have an allergic reaction to non-organic products, and not only was I subjected to the products used on others, I had to have my hair blowdried without any products to protect my hair.
I ended up spending over 5 hours in the salon, because I was repeatedly left with my head dangling in a sink while the stylist disappeared to mix new chemicals. I can understand central London prices, because they hire assistants for their stylist to mix products, etc. They will also have top equipment to ensure their clients are comfortable. This salon is cramped, has shampoo stations that don't recline, and stylist chairs that don't change height, so that they can't even cut long hair while you're sitting down.
After several hours of sitting with no foot rest, having other people's hair and products blown in my face, I was taken to a dirty shampoo station, where I was left while the stylist mixed products. While my head was dangling in the sink, another stylist flicked the alcohol from a comb right into my face into the sink that I was occupying. Forget friendly service, they can't even bother to treat you like a human being.
When the stylist finished applying the foils, she told me that the product would need to sit for 30 minutes. Most other salons have a separate station where they'll seat you under a dryer with magazines to make waiting a pleasant experience. This salon just left me to be subjected to their overcrowded dirty salon. Each station was so small that the stylists didn't have their own individual tools and products. Other stylists kept bumping into my seat to reach over and grab items from the station where I was seated. My own stylist had to send someone to hunt for hair clips, and they couldn't even find any. Hair was left in piles in the corner of the salon, shampoo basins were left full of old foils and product. The stylists didn't even know how to properly operate a blowdryer. One woman screamed out while having her hair dried because they burned her ear.
The timer for my highlights went off and continued to buzz while my stylist was preoccupied at the receptionist station. The salon didn't have a receptionist, and every time the phone rang, my stylist had to excuse herself in the middle of my service to answer it. I kept trying to catch my stylist's attention, to let her know that it was now ten minutes past the processing time. She finally came over to tell me that she'd get to me in a moment. I was shocked. In my experience with other salons, the stylist will come over several times to check the foils. This stylist not only never bothered to check, but left me past the normal processing time. This put my hair at risk as she had already pulled the bleach through over previously bleached areas. Other salons are careful not to overlap bleach. This salon overlapped and didn't care to check to make sure your hair was okay during the process.
After 45 minutes the salon manager had to yell at the stylist to take out my foils. The whole atmosphere was so unprofessional and made me incredibly uncomfortable. After shampooing my hair wasn't even towel dried. The stylist came back and forced a brush through my dripping wet and recently bleached hair, causing it to break. Then she had me stand up while she cut my hair. I had to stand there with my sopping hair dripping into my shoes.
The cut was neither careful nor precise. She spent 5 minutes chopping it bluntly after I asked for long layers. My stylists at other salons use Mizutani scissors and carefully graduated my layers. This was a total chop job. The highlights were over processed, and she used color over the bleach without asking my permission or doing a patch test. Rather than dynamic highlights, I left the salon with hair that looked like a flat single process and it will grow out with noticeable roots. I had a horrible reaction to the color chemicals, and have an inflamed scalp, along with a stiff neck, canckles, ruined purse, fried hair, and a bill that was not only more expensive than central london salons, but significantly more than what was quoted to me in their confirmation email. In keeping with their standard customer service, the manager argued with me that they didn't need to honor the quoted price. Just a very disappointing, tacky, overpriced experience. read more