My incident with Local Honey and the owner, who is apparently, an awful human being, and who is named Kate Quintard, was a year ago. The reason I hesitated to write a review is that I don't believe in using yelp like I'm some legitimate critic of a business that someone has worked hard to establish. I also didn't want anyone to get fired. The idea of posting photos of my hairy, chemical-burned ankles was pretty unbearable. As well, the doctor diagnosed me with a chemical burn, and told me it "might" heal in six to nine months. That semi-hopeful prognosis in combination with the covid shut down and the fact that I was also trying to finish grad school, lead me to decide that, in spite of the disgusting treatment I received from Kate Quintard, I would see if it healed, finish school and then reassess.
Well, it's been almost a year and my scarring is pronounced. That, in addition to the abhorrent treatment I received by Kate Quintard and the fact that every time I look down at my ankle I feel angry that someone, anyone, especially someone as horrendous as Kate Quintard, would think it's OK to cause me physical harm without proper restitution and not only that but also be rude, manipulative and threatening...well, I'm angry.
I went to Local Honey regularly and spent good money there, always tipping generously. On this particular day, I booked a spa pedicure and when they did the callus removal part, the tech wrapped not only my heels in chemicals, but also the tops of my feet and my ankles. I told her that it was burning and she said "oh it's almost done." So, I tried to suck it up. My best friend, who was sitting next to me, witnessed the whole thing. I tried to assuage her concern by making a little joke about how it was probably just stinging because I was allergic to my socks. (I bring this seemingly inane part of the story up because this is what the owner used to try to completely invalidate the injury) No matter what mild allergy I may have had to my socks, it would have been entirely irrelevant to the fact that the callus remover chemical was pasted to the top of my foot and my ankle which if one does any research, knows this is not where callus removal is supposed go. I'll let the photos speak for themselves. The more severe photos are from last December (the one with the rainbow sock was after walking around all night after the pedicure) and the others are of the permanent scars today. After a few days of trying to treat my burns I emailed the owner, Kate Quintard, and, at first, she was receptive and wrote back saying, "I'll send you a full refund ASAP...I am so so so sorry!!!!" But a week passed and no refund.
I was frustrated and emailed again, telling her I also wanted the price of the scar cream and wound supplies added in, as well as the ubers to and from the doctor because I was having a lot of pain walking. At this point I was still only asking for the price of the services plus the medical related travel expense and anything directly related to out-of-pocket expenses due to the burns, which still only totaled roughly 200 dollars. I had easily spent thousands of dollars at her business. I also referred a lot of customers to her, as I work with a lot of dancers...speaking of, I am a theater performer and I will now have to constantly use stage makeup to cover the scars.
Here was one of her responses to me, "We aren't going to arbitrarily refund you costs for Uber's and creams etc." Then she proceeded to twist all the above information around to make it sound as if I had some crazy rash on my foot ahead of time due to a sock allergy and that it's my fault I had a chemical burn even after I told her that one, I had no rash, two, I was only trying to ease my friend's concern, and third it's completely irrelevant because no professional person should ever put callus remover on someone's ankle. I responded, "I'll be initiating either a civil suit or hiring an injury lawyer." THEN she proceeded to send me a reimbursement ONLY for the price of the pedicure to my EX-HUSBAND'S paypal account, which was disturbing since I never gave her that information. Also, I already gave her two accounts that actually belonged to me to send money. My ex-husband and I have completely different last names. I told her that was alarming, and this was her final response "I used your email address for the PayPal. Why would your husband use your email address?? Anyway, I don't appreciate or take threats lightly."
So, yeah, just world class gaslighting and general creepy shit. Telling someone that they are threatening you for hiring a lawyer when it's you that caused the injury is basically just code for trying to intimidate me out of taking appropriate legal action. Local Honey is a place that markets itself in this Zen, self-care, female-positive way. Uh, yeah...sure. What a despicable, supposedly human entity the owner, Kate Quintard is.
Again sorry for the hairy ankles...not easy to shave around that. read more