I was a loyal client--since 2019--until last week. Erin, my OG stylist, was AMAZING. She was kind,…read morefriendly, humble, and SKILLED. She brought my brown-black hair to an amazing level of blond and I will forever be grateful. When Erin left the salon I stuck around, going first to Alexis who highlighted my hair once, and then, most recently, to Rachel.
My color request was simple: tone out the orange and add contrast to my money pieces. My hair was already damaged from a botched DIY bleach bath from last April, so knowing my hair history, I was surprised when Rachel began foiling highlights into my already brassy, frizzled hair, leaving some strands untouched. In the months prior she'd toned my poorly bleached mess to dark brown--it faded brassy, and highlighted it--brassy again, all the while insisting on warm browns. Warm had SOUNDED great--like caramel--but the reality was more like old rust--every time.
This time I was adamant. Get rid of the orange once and for all. Cool tones. Ash. Let's do this already.
The photo I brought along was an ombre with money pieces--brunette and blond. I've attached it below. I really wish we'd discussed my priorities and the reality of my hair situation beforehand but we never got into depth.
Maybe because, on top of everything else, Rachel seemed to be having a psychological crisis. She went on and on about on a few personal issues and I started feeling more like a therapist or family member than a paying client. I also grew concerned about her foiling, but she was the pro. I'd communicated my goals clearly. Surely she knew what she was doing.
In the end this was the least relaxing salon visit I'd ever had. I sat there for almost five hours, spent $300 and knew enough about Rachel's personal life to write a novella.
And the piece de la resistance? My hair came out MORE orange AFTER my appointment.
The following day I reached out to Alexis, who acts as a quasi-manager when Laura isn't around, which, according to salon gossip, is more and more these days. On this day, Laura was at a two-week luxury retreat and unreachable. I imagined her phone sitting in a hemp basket somewhere that reeked of incense while she lay in corpse pose communing with her inner wisdom.
Lo, instead of acknowledging Rachel's epic fail, Alexis first apologized in that classic non-apology way. She said, "I'm sorry your hair feels orange." No Alexis, my hair IS orange. But I FEEL infuriated. Then she blamed a) my hair for not lifting, b) my goal photo for being too blond at the ends, which was not my priority AT ALL, but who would know? And c) fate itself--because sometimes things just don't go as planned OMG. It couldn't--heaven forfend--be the fault of the girl who actually colored my hair.
Now I felt even worse. It wasn't enough that I looked like 1997 Ginger Spice. I was also being gaslit by fake management. So I reached out to Laura. She owns the joint after all. She would surely make things right. In my email to her I stayed on message. I was unhappy with my results, received the polar opposite of what I asked for, and wanted a refund and/or a correction done by her. There was no way I'd return to Rachel now.
I waited a week for Laura to return to civilization from shangri-la. Finally she emailed back. Laura apologized that I was unhappy (another non-apology) but would have to charge me in full for her service and offered no refund. Nada. Zilch.
So I wrote this.
PS, My husband, two adult children and I will go elsewhere from now on.