-----Update-----
After seeing my initial experience below, Larry, Suki's colour director contacted me within a couple of days to make things right. He called twice when I missed his first call, and was extremely courteous, apologetic, and understanding. He booked me to come in first thing that coming Saturday.
When I arrived at the salon, I was greeted by Larry at the door, and he immediately apologized and thanked me for coming in. He wasted no time asking me details about what happened, and agreed that there was a great deal of warmth at my roots, not at all what I'd asked for. He and his team of skilled apprentices took care of me with warmth, courtesy, and world-class professionalism.
The end result was a rich medium-dark ash brown colour to replace the former warm brown that shone orange under lights. Larry gave me a complimentary treatment post-wash that left my hair silky, as well as a mini-kit of D'Cinque treatment products to take home.
All in all, Suki's is a salon with extremely high standards, and my negative experience with them before was clearly an aberration from their norm. I've already recommended this salon to my friends who have heard my initial hair woes, and I would definitely use their services again.
Thank you so much Larry, you are a gem and paragon of your field, and I now love my hair thanks to you and your lovely assistants.
----Original Post------
My negative experience only concerns a colourist who'd recently moved from Toni & Guy on 4th to join the Suki's team on South Granville. The salon itself is top-notch, with courteous, professional staff.
I have been colouring my hair for 3 years, several times with Lana, also from Toni & Guy, who unfortunately did not make the move to Suki's. I couldn't find out where she went, so I booked an appointment with Claire at Suki's after receiving a promotional email about the move, thinking why not.
Before we began, we talked over what I wanted and what I was comfortable with. I explained to her clearly that I would like the path of least resistance - colour-wise and damage-wise. I said I'd be comfortable with brown, so long as it is an ash brown, no warmth. (I have naturally black Asian hair, that lifts surprisingly well, which I've worn at varying levels, from dark blonde to medium brown) It tones easily into an ashy brown once lifted.
After about an hour and half of applying colour & rather lively conversation - where Claire confided she didn't think ethnic people should really stray far from their natural hair colour (a troubling and rather offensive view, coming from a colourist) - I was relayed to 2 different apprentices who washed and blow dried my hair for another hour and half (!)
The colour came out a brassy mahogany around my roots, with the remainder of my hair its original light ashy brown. Claire did not bother to come speak with me at the end of the blow-drying. I was surprised by this. This should be a warning sign for anyone - a colourist that does not check up on her work. Usually a good colourist will dry sections of your hair to see how the colour's developed.
I was even more surprised when she charged me $300 for the colour. Let me just put this in perspective: a full colour correction that took the lovely Chris Weber 5 hours at Barbarella (including a cut) was $300 and the hue was perfect. This was a poor slap-dash dye-job (1.5 hours stretched out to 3 unnecessarily) with a clear demarcation line (or banding) between the roots and the remainder of my hair. She only came down to see me when I asked to speak with her about the cost breakdown. She insisted it was a colour correction. It was a root-touch up and toner/semi-permanent application at best.
I was too gob-smacked by her bold insistence that I "just needed to come back" when I expressed my discomfort with the colour and price, that I just paid and left. This experience has left a bad taste in my mouth. I regret not speaking with management.
If you're looking for a professional colourist who actually respects and listens to her clients, I'd advise against Claire. I'm going to have to hunt down Lana, or go back to Chris at Barbarella. read more