Let me say first that the way they dealt with me after I was unhappy with my haircut was more than fair. In a world where customer service is disappearing, Mickey, the owner, went above and beyond. He listened to me, took time to look at my hair and tinker with it to fix it as best he could, and he refunded my money.
That said, I'm not sure that getting my money back really makes up for my extremely bad haircut and the fact that Hunter, my stylist, basically did the opposite of what I asked for.
I called the salon after reading all the good reviews on Yelp and left a message on their machine saying I was interested in a haircut, but only if they had someone who knew how to work with my loosely curly hair (3a/b-ish). They called me back, I reiterated my desire to work with someone who was good with loose curls, and they booked me with Hunter.
At first I was impressed with him. He really listened to me, and he was very accommodating about my multiple allergies to hair products. He rinsed my hair instead of shampooing, so as not to cause me a reaction, and he suggested homemade treatments that I might be able to tolerate.
The cut we agreed on was just a trim to my below-shoulder-length hair. I agreed to have a bit more layering put in, but to have the layers longer in back, and slightly shorter around my face, to just below my chin.
As he was cutting my hair, Hunter stopped to attend to another client who was having a process done. I had noted that this bothered one of the other reviewers, so I expected it. I didn't mind. What I did mind was that he seemed to lose his place and started cutting back at the beginning, making hair he had already cut even shorter.
The cut I ended up with had nothing to do with what we discussed and showed that he hadn't the slightest idea of how to work with curly hair. Hunter cut my top layers quite short, causing them to shrink much more than my lower layers. He also cut a large amount of my hair into one, very pronounced layer around my ears, leaving the rest of my hair (maybe two thirds to one half) straggling down to my shoulders. The fact that most of my hair is the same length halfway down my head makes it bunch up and poof out around my ears. The best way I can describe the end result to you is that it's like one of those short, puffy, 80's, triangle haircuts, but modified into a mullet.
He did cut the layers around my face to around my chin. However, the layers get shorter around the sides and back of my head, so that if you look at the side of my head, the very obvious, pronounced line of hair inclines at about a twenty degree angle toward the back of my head. Also, there is a weird, missing chunk of hair on the left side - think hole in a Christmas tree. This isn't a weird cowlick or odd curl pattern problem -- I've never seen anything like this before in my life.
Later when I talked to Mickey about it, he put me in his chair and tried to trim around the missing chunk to make the edges softer and less pronounced. He happened to pull out a lock of hair on either side to make sure the cut was symmetrical. The two sections differed in length by about a quarter to a half an inch. A brief, annoyed expression crossed his face, he snipped the offending bit of hair, got me out of the chair, and gave me a refund.
Several hours later, my husband asked what they had put in my hair, because there was a very strong perfume smell. I had written down on my intake sheet and had told both Hunter and Mickey that I couldn't tolerate fragrances, essential oils, or salon products. They promised that the only thing they put in my hair was water. The only way I can guess how I ended up with perfumed product in my hair is that either the "just water" that Hunter sprayed in my hair (and in my face) wasn't, or that the combs they used on me had not been cleaned and had product residue from other customers. My face was rash-y the next day, which never happens to me unless I am using a new product I'm allergic to.
I vacillated on whether to write this review because Mickey went above and beyond to make it right, and I didn't want to pay him back for his decency by making trouble for him. I finally decided to post my experience because I considered the possibility that this had happened to others, and they had chosen to keep quiet, leading me to trust the good reviews and have horrible, weird layers that will take the better part of a year to grow out. I didn't want that to happen to others. Everyone has bad days, but the fact that I was assigned to Hunter, who clearly doesn't know the first thing about how curly hair acts, that he did the exact opposite of what I asked, and that I wound up with allergy-inducing fragrance in my hair makes me think that this may not be a rare case of bad luck.
They might be great for people with straight hair. Maybe everyone but Hunter is wonderful. You should make your own decision, but I feel obligated to share just how it went for me. read more