I've known Cesar since I first moved to Washington. I originally went to him when he was working at…read morea salon in Bellevue, and I really liked him from the beginning. I never went back to that particular salon because, honestly, the owner gave me all kinds of bad vibes .
So when I saw that Cesar had opened his own salon in downtown Seattle, I was so happy for him, but I was also like, "Man, he's too far away now!" Well, fast-forward to us now having a place in Seattle in addition to Bellevue, and his salon is literally about a 12-minute walk from me. At this point, it's a no brainer.
I've seen some people mention that Cesar moves from client to client during appointments, but that honestly isn't unusual to me at all. This is something I've seen in many high-end salons, especially when the owner is also the main stylist operating the salon. He starts the service himself, mixes the color, begins applying it, and then one of his assistants may step in to continue or finish part of the process while he moves on to another client.
I'm from the Middle East, and I've seen this exact setup in high end salons in Dubai, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and even London. So personally, I would never use that against him. From a business perspective, it also makes sense. If he isn't simply renting out the other chairs, he can't realistically operate a huge salon while personally doing only two or three clients from beginning to end every day without his prices being significantly higher.
One thing I've always respected about Cesar is that since day one, he has refused to bleach my hair. He told me very clearly that my hair is fragile and would not handle the bleach, and I appreciate a stylist who cares more about the health of my hair than just saying yes to whatever I ask for.
This time he did my roots, and I honestly don't even know what they did afterward some kind of deep-conditioning treatment or magic but my hair feels SO GOOD. I washed it two days later, and it still felt amazing.
And I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE that I don't have that obvious "band" around my hair from doing the roots. Sometimes when you color your roots, you can see exactly where the new root color ends because it doesn't blend properly with the rest of the hair. I don't have that at all. Everything blends beautifully.
The salon itself is HUGE, stunning, and very welcoming. But something else really stood out to me: everyone working there seemed genuinely happy and was smiling. To me, that says a lot about the work environment and how the salon is being run.
I'm really happy Cesar finally has his own beautiful space and even happier that now he's only a 12-minute walk away from me!