DO NOT GO HERE!! (I say this based on a terrible highight/color episode I had, I didn't get a cut there, but am glad it worked out that way).
I have never in my life written a bad or even upset review about a person or location, and I am 34yrs old. However, I have to because I feel like maybe I will save someone else from my awful experience and results.
I found Red Salon Raleigh through Groupon, as I am a Mom of two and prefer to save where I can and still hopefully pamper myself sometimes. The groupon was for a full highlight, cut, wash, blowdry and style so I figured, why not? I made my appointment with the salon owner, Rita, and was right on time. We sat down for a good 15min consultation; we sat in the wonderful natural light she has through her windows, she checked out my hair, I gave her my very minimal highlight/coloring history, and showed her around 5 photos of what I DID want my end result too look like (as well as verbally explained it), 5-6 photos of what I absolutely did NOT want (for highlights/color) and verbally explained why, and then showed her about 4-5 photos of the style cut I wanted. When I showed her the end-result (streaky choppy highlights against dark hair streaks - "redneck" - excuse me, I don't mean to offend) I did not want, she said "oh honey no. we won't do that." so we seemed to be on the same exact page. We also chose a nice deep brown (about my same hair color, but richer) base color as an all-over color because she said it would make my ahir look richer and would look really nice with the highlights. I specifically asked "so the light highlights will still blend okay with such a dark all-over color and give me that blended natural look?" and she said "yes" and walked away to mix the highlighting color.
so at 10:30 (my appointment was for 10am-1/1:30pm per my booking phone call and per our conversation when we started - my husband was waiting to get to work once I got home) she started with the highlight foils. As we approached 1pm, she was still not finished with but about 1/2 of my head of highlights, and had one of her girls help hand her foils - at this point the pieces that she started with had now had the mix on them for 2+hrs. I asked her if she thought we wouuld still be done at 1:30 and she said yes. 1:15 starts approaching and she was still working on the highlight color. My groupon was for a highlight, cut, wash, blow-dry and style and that was nowhere in sight.
as we near 1:30 she has finally finished a rather harsh (pulling my hair and flipping foils all over the place,, scrubbing the brush against my head to apply my all-over color) application of the all-over color. so she sets the timer for the necesssary time (mind you, original hair that started the highlight process has now been under the dye since 10:30am...3hrs) and I ask her "is there any way I am going to be finished by 2? We still have a cut to do and my husband is really upset and needs to get to work - we were supposed to be done at 1:30, and even that was 30 min later than I booked for". She says "oh yes" and we go back to wash my hair out. She first applies a toner, and then washes and conditions and I tell her "look. it's already 2pm. If we need to, perhaps we should reschedule the cut portion of my appointment?" and she says perhaps. I tell my husband the pplan and he says he can't get to work and do anything at this point anyways, so just take care of it all...so I tell her "ok cool let's do eveything anyways" and she says "it's best if we reschedule the rest". Ridiculous thtat I even had to offer that to begin with.
So I get to the seat and tell her I have to get home, just scrunch my hair and let it be curly and I will head home. So do. She wouldn't turn the chair around from the time I got my hair washed until she put the product in. Usually that feels like a "great reveal, taadaa!" but I just felt this suspicious, dropping feeling in my stomach. She finally turns me around and my first thought is "OMG. I look like a witch". i didn't say this to her because I didn't want to be a jerk, and there was nothign to be done at that moment anyways and I needed to GO. So I look up close and I had dye on my forehead at my hairline and "sideburn" area, and the highlighted parts of my hair were fried, and stringy and reminded me of the woman from frankenstein movies. I said "yep, I love it, let's gett checked out so i can go" just to save time, and I headed out. I got home and got in the shower - washed my hair and dried it and realized afterr straightening it, that the highlight color didn't even reach my scalp so it looked like i already had roots, and the highlight didn't even come all the way down to the ends of my hair DON'T GO HERE. I'm so glad she didn't cut my hair. She reimbursed me the goupon fare & color charge which was nice and also necessary, but now I still have to go get it fixed & my hair is fried. Badly. Don't take a chance here. read more