I went back-and-forth on writing this, but given that it's now been 10 months since the incident, I…read morehave to warn others. I spent years growing my hair to be healthy & strong, & I have ended up with fried hair that I have had to slowly nurse back to even halfway health. Come here if you want to be ignored, gaslighted, & end up with completely damaged, ruined hair. I do NOT recommend this salon for Black women / women of color / curly textures. This is long so buckle up.
I originally reached out for a simple color service & was referred to Aly. I came in for a consultation and after an hour, she told me to continue texting her ideas so that we could figure the look out together. She then proceeded to mostly ignore me, & when she did respond, she sent photos of basic results nowhere near what we had discussed. Frustrated, I decided to come back in to just get my test strand toned back. She didn't even care to respond, just passed me off to the front desk.
When I came back, I was asked if I wanted to consult with another stylist, Daniel, known for being "great with color." I have dark brown hair, & he assured me the cinnamon red look I wanted was achievable. In retrospect, having now lost my long & super healthy hair, still recovering from excessive chemical damage 10 months later, I WISH I had just walked out the door.
For context, I had healthy, fine hair in long layers, anywhere from 2A-2C mixed wavy/curly textures, with length about an inch past my bust. I had defined curls, shine, & softness, & barely heat styled. Daniel lightened my hair with a low volume (supposedly) bleach & put a heat lamp on it. The heat lamp was so close to my hair that I moved at one point & it melted the plastic hair cap. After, I noticed my wet hair felt dry & tangled when he was combing, but I was trusting the process. When he started blowing out, my hair was WAY too blond & visibly dry. We had to tone it again. After another toner & cutting layers - 8 hours later - the result was pretty but felt parched, & also was not what we'd discussed color-wise. I was headed out of town the next day, so he promised to tone me when I was back & I trusted him.
Fast forward - I shampoo my hair on vacation. My hair is GUMMY, breaking & pulling out in clumps. I can't stop crying. My super healthy hair that I could run my fingers through whirl wet was now inexplicably matted & dry, to the point I couldn't even work shampoo in properly. My curl pattern was DESTROYED. I reached out to Daniel & he put me in touch with the salon owner, saying my hair seemed "healthy" condition when I'd left. When I got back to LA, he did a deep conditioning treatment & a keratin treatment on the house, which helped somewhat. He also cut a few more inches off due to the damage - mind you, we had originally discussed that retaining my length was extremely important to me. He said to come back in 2 weeks for the toner to achieve the final color I'd requested.
Traveling again, I got a simple wash & set at a local salon bc at this point, I couldn't even manage my hair on my own anymore on a day-to-day basis. Again, I do not do chemical treatments. The stylist told me I had intense chemical damage & chemically burned hair. I ended up having to cut off more, leaving my hair a little past shoulder length. I reached out to Daniel letting him know about the chemical damage; at this point, he said because I'd gone to another stylist he "couldn't service my hair anymore." He wrote a long text where he falsely asserted my hair was in healthy condition when I'd left & that it'd been too long since the service for him to help. Like...what? I had sent numerous pics & videos of the matting, shedding, gummy clumps of hair to both you & the salon owner & you're going to try & gaslight me? You told me to come back later! For him to try & rewrite history was extremely disappointing, & I lost all respect for him. Given his lack of integrity, I cut my losses, blocked, & decided not to argue about it further.
I had to cut my hair a third time into a shoulder length bob. Now, 10 months later, I've been able to grow my hair a few inches with consistent trims, conditioning treatments, & protective styles, but it is still so hard to manage. My curl pattern has not returned to normal. At this point, I am STRONGLY considering a big chop, which was the worst possible scenario IMO. I will have to start over & spend the next few years growing back all the hair I've lost & restoring it to the health that I had before I ever stepped foot in this salon. I have spent 100s of dollars on bond building & reparative products, as well as follow up visits at other salons. On top of that, the immense stress & anxiety of losing my beautiful & healthy hair for what should've been a simple service was extremely, extraordinarily depressing. If you made it this far, do yourself and the health of your hair a huge favor and GO ANYWHERE ELSE.
