To preface this review, this has been my salon of choice since I moved to Seattle in 2008, and I've seen several stylists over the years who are amazing, and have spent several thousand dollars here. I'm not sure what has happened to it recently, but they have far fewer stylists now and they don't seem to be the same level of high-quality creatives. This review isn't meant to reflect all of the stylists there, but my most recent visit was by far the worst salon experience I've had in my life. After getting a haircut that was not what I asked for from a different stylist (a no-shape bulky bob with crooked, too-long bangs) Lauraina did just a horrible job on my bleach and tone, extremely uneven all over and super brassy-orange in spots. It looked like when I tried to do my own bleach in high school.
She was downright hostile towards me the entire visit after she was also 20 minutes late, there was a disagreement about the cost of the service and what I had been quoted on the phone. During my call, I detailed very specifically what I wanted and the condition of my current hair. I developed a plan with the scheduler and even sent several pics of my hair as it was during the convo. For the haircut I discussed cutting all of the pre-lightened, ultra-faded pink hair I had on my ends off and just bleaching the top part that remained, as a short bob. The stylist who cut my hair left a tiny amount of the colored hair on the ends. Since I also briefed her on the entire plan of my service, I assumed she left it there with the knowledge I was expecting to just bleach it all after the cut. They instead tried to do my bleach appointment as an entire color correction, for both the bleach-and-tone cost PLUS $75/hr. I asked to just cancel the appointment and leave as I felt Lauraina's hostile energy after I disagreed with the service contract they made, and couldn't afford the cost they were proposing (nearly $500) - but they instead offered to do the appointment as the originally discussed bleach-and-tone service. I wanted to leave still but felt bad that there was a disagreement and agreed to pay $50 more than I had been quoted since a tiny amount of colored hair was left on my ends against my wishes.
Lauraina aggressively pushed my neck around in the washing bowl and had me move my head in several ultra-strained positions that seemed intentionally sadistic - so that I experienced neck pain for at least a week afterwards, pulled my hair and nearly stabbed me with her utensils, and even accused me of lying about not having pre-existing color on my roots, which was extremely rude. I did not feel safe during this visit and really wish I would have left earlier. She frequently rolled her eyes, made snide remarks and had a terrible attitude altogether; I don't think she should be in any sort of customer service role based on this totally unhinged display. She noticed but shrugged-off the unevenness of her job, again accusing me of lying about having virgin hair grown out with no color. She did not even apply the toner I paid for, either, and stormed out of the building dramatically when finished.
The front desk person said nothing to me at payment and did not apologize for Lauraina's rude behavior, even after I apologized for whatever role I had in the miscommunication of service type/costs and was almost in tears at getting treated like that for a couple hours. It was honestly traumatizing after I had been unable to afford hair color for several months and was so excited to feel like myself again. I thought it would be so great to get a fresh start with my natural hair as the canvas and she just totally made me feel like garbage, and ruined my hair for months to come. I wore wigs for a year before this visit, so the accusation of the color on my clearly-natural hair made me really upset, too. I was so embarrassed about the wigs and wanted my real hair and the confidence it gave me back, but Lauraina ruined that for me. I would give her 0 stars if possible.
Instead of taking my usual post-salon selfies, I wondered what I could do to fix this egregiously uneven bleach, and decided it was best to not create more damage or pay even more at a different salon, and just applied the pink color over it at home as intended - hoping it would be saturated enough to not take unevenly on the base. And I still ended up paying $270 just for the bleach only. Looking at their site now, it says + Single process color: $120 and up and + Double process color: $150 and up. Since she was a junior stylist and clearly just out of school, I don't even know how I was asked to pay over $200 for this service, and there was no toner even applied so that doesn't even sound like a double-process service... I feel betrayed by this experience at my former favorite salon and sadly won't be returning ever again. read more