Short story-
I saw a stylist at Hair Station for a cut, bleach, and color. There were issues with the bleach, and I had to come back a second time to have it corrected. The second time didn't come out right either. Upset and frustrated I contacted the owner to see if there was anything I could do at this point, and to see if the owner would try to step in and fix my hair. Nope. Gave a runaround and made it clear she wasn't interested in helping. So over six hours in a chair and a few hundred dollars later my hair looks a hot mess and the owner is OK with that representing her business.
Long story-
I bleach my naturally dark hair (level 2) leaving ¼" to 1/2" of shadow root, and color it a gray/pastel purple. I had just moved to the Auburn area and my roots were super duper overgrown. While I am happy to color my hair at home using direct dyes, I know better then to mess with bleach myself so I made an appointment for a consultation at the Hair Station to have about 3" of my growth bleached (still leaving a slight shadow root). I came in, talked to a stylist, showed her pictures on my hair, told her what I wanted, and what I didn't want, she saw what my outgrowth looked like, and set up an appointment.
When I came back for an appointment, I started getting a feeling something was wrong about halfway through. The stylist was applying bleach to my hair in foils, but leaving out huge amounts of hair with no product at all on them. When I asked her about it she said something about how that hair would lighten up when she did the following step in the shampoo bowl. Nervous, I trusted her and figured she knew what she was talking about.
After a few more processes of toning, keratin treatments, etc, the stylist colored my hair using the Pravana color formula that I told her that I use at home. The color didn't come out exact, and it came out super super dark, but that's OK since the fashion colors fade so fast.
After about a week of fading it became apparent that she didn't bleach all my hair, but rather just gave me highlights of bleach. I called up and talked to her, and it was clear there was some miscommunication so she said I could come in again and that she would apply more bleach all over (still leaving the shadow root). Worried about double processing the hair that she had already bleached, she tried her best to pick those parts out, and just bleach around them.
About half way through applying color the second time the stylist ran out of one of the colors she needed for my formula, so she called a friend up and had her run to a beauty supply store to grab another tube. Again the color came out super duper dark, but the stylist assured me that now 95% of my hair was bleached.
After fading for another week it became clear that the second round of bleaching was not allowed to process long enough. The hair she bleached the second time was not lifted to a full 9 or 10, but was only a 7. There's no way in hell a level 7 can hold a pastel or silver fashion color. So my options are to either color my hair much darker than I want every time, or walk around with dark brown roots, a middle section of dark blonde with gray/purple highlights, and ends of pure gray/pastel purple.
At first I didn't have the heart to call back again, and I was dubious as to whether there is anything that could be done since there was so much bleach applied to my hair within a month so I just tried to live with it. After a few weeks of cringing every time I looked in the mirror I reached out to the owner on Facebook to see what she recommended doing at this point. After explaining the situation, and talking to her about the problem, she ended the conversation by saying "Unfortunately... we can no longer guarantee the out come of your color because it has been altered outside the salon." So because I touch up my color with Pravana colors at home, she won't acknowledge that the bleaching was done at all correctly. She tried to justify this by saying that the products I purchased could be counterfeit, which is ironic since I buy my color at the SAME beauty supply store that the stylist sent her friend when she ran out of color. And because of the way direct dyes act chemically there is NO WAY that these dyed could have made the bleached sections magically unbleached themselves a few levels.
At this point I was shocked. In the 15+ years I've had my hair bleached and colored in countless cities and states I've never heard such backwards logic, or had an owner who was seemingly OK with an unhappy client walking around.
Moral of the story- Don't go to Hair Station if you care about how you look, because the owner sure as heck doesn't.
Disclaimer- the cut was great despite issues with color. read more