Madly Bad. I left Madly Ugly. The worst salon experience/outcome I have ever had in my life. I chose Allison for a colour roots to do be done, due to the other positive review of her on Yelp. While she, as a person, is nice and fun, bizarrely, she claimed expert colour skills and blatant confidence, and clearly displayed the polar opposite. Not only was she unable to follow the clear lines of my previous colour, which were in 3 even chunks (despite my clearly pointing them out with explicit instructions to follow it, along with photos of the last session) for some reason she believed that colouring to the roots (which was the primary reason I was there in the first place!) is literally impossible. And that wasn't the worst part.
First, she coloured opposite to the previous colour by ignoring the lines and colours present and parting the hair in the total opposite direction and applying it that way - creating all kinds of new patterns and bleached areas amidst the old one.
Second, she left a half inch to a full inch of old roots untreated whatsoever.
Third, she did not know enough to do each colour separately, and/or to do what is necessary to ensure absolutely no bleeding into the colour adjacent, and some bled into the others during processing.
Fourth - and this took some time to discover - she used high volume processing that caused a large amount of my hair to go brittle and break off. I mean A LOT - 15-25% of my hair LOST! (I know it was from this visit, as this has never happened before in my lifetime of other colouring.)
As a result of all this, I now have:
- new hair growth with uneven, zig-zaggy stripes due to the bizarre way colour was applied unevenly
- multiple shades where there previously was one
- a gray hair streak that has gray new growth, icky pale yellow bled through the middle, then gray again ( it was all gray before, and was supposed to stay that way)
- a blonde streak with a dark brown horizontal stripe from the bleeding
- hair that is all thinned out at the bottom and ends due to the use of high volume processing
and lastly,
hair that is SO MESSED UP colour-wise that another salon's Master Colorist decided it was TOO COMPLICATED to even FIX. I now feel like the ugliest person on earth, and my hair is not even in good enough condition now to strip the colour out of it. I don't feel confident even being in public now, nevermind feeling pretty, as a direct result of my visit to Allison at MaddPretty. What makes it so devastating is that the effects are going to last for at least 6 months and likely for much longer.
The positives: There are a few, and only fair to mention them as well. It is a cool, funky salon, in terms of design, enjoyable to sit in. And kudos is deserved to be given to another stylist named Jason, who tried to fix it the next day (while Allison took off after waiting 5 minutes, instead of trying to repair it herself, despite the urgency). Thanks to his efforts, it was just okay enough to be in public without complete embarrassment for the first month or two, at which point all the new, unwanted high-contrast roots Allison had added began to appear. (Before that I would not dare leave the house.) Jason deserves a real pat on the back for not only stepping up to the plate to attempt what was already a challenging correction, and an terrified client, but he did it out of the goodness of his heart to boot. He did not have to do that. And as mentioned, Allison is perfectly okay as an individual. She might be good at haircuts, I do not know as I did not have one done. But keep my experience in mind if you choose to have colour done at this salon with her. read more
