I had to wait a few weeks to cool down before writing this. I am currently recovering from a hair disaster as a result of this salon. I went in with long thick voluminous natural black hair and left with over-processed, orangey highlights, and an awful cut that was nothing that I asked for.
I told the stylist I just wanted a trim and to "clean it up", she seemed to understand that and be on the same page . I also brought in a picture of the hair color that I wanted and showed her specifically that I wanted a natural looking ombre, with just a brown color at the bottom. I told her I was very apprehensive about the color, and was very upfront that I didn't want to do it if she thought it would be brassy. I thought I was very clear, apparently I wasn't.
Instead, I ended up with brownish orange highlights at the roots (far from ombre). She left the foils on way too long as she decided it was a good idea to take additional clients while working on me. This resulted in very splotchy highlights in some parts (which were later pointed out to me by several people). I totally get that coloring naturally dark hair can be difficult and that a brassy effect is unfortunately the result often times, but for allegedly one of the best salons in DC the result I got just seemed unacceptable. I didn't notice just how horrific they were until I got home and saw them in natural light, not the soft lighting the salon had. I also had a ton of highlights on one side, and hardly any on the other.
Now on to the part that left me absolutely furious. The stylist decided, that without asking me AT ALL that she would thin my hair out in the back. I felt her cut in at the bottom layer of my hair and thought "she can't be thinning my hair can she?" I couldn't say anything because she was halfway through before I fully realized what was happening. To any stylist out there NEVER THIN A CLIENT'S HAIR WITHOUT ASKING THEM FIRST, seriously. It grows back a hot mess, and if they don't ask for it, they don't want it. She also did a terrible job of blowing out my hair. It took her over 45 minutes and it was puffy and frizzy. It really didn't look like she knew what she was doing at that point.
I initially booked a second appointment with the hopes of discussing my frustrations, but I just couldn't go through with it. Instead I decided to go to another salon who fixed the awful cut as best they could (and also pointed out the terrible thinning job the stylist did) and put a dark gloss over my hair to cover up the awful highlights that happened.
My advice, if you have thick hair just avoid this place at all costs, they really don't know what they are doing with that kind of hair. When I booked my appointment I specifically asked for someone who was good with "extremely thick hair" and that certainly didn't happen. Obviously they have a lot of great reviews (why I initially picked them) so they are doing something right, but again if you have a lot of hair, I suggest going elsewhere, unless of course you feel like shelling out $400 on your hair in a two week span to fix a colossal screw up of a haircut and highlight . read more