Let's start with the long wait time I came in for a trim, wash, and silk press, and I ended up…read morewaiting for hours. The shop owner doesn't seem to know when to turn people away. She keeps taking in new clients, leaving them sitting for hours, spending their entire day at the salon just to get their hair done.
I came to Hair Therapy as someone who has struggled to maintain my 4B/4C hair. I arrived with my hair in its natural state under a bonnet. When it was time for the stylist to wash my hair, I removed my bonnet, and as soon as she saw my dry natural hair, she began showing visible signs of dissatisfaction as if she didn't want to do my hair or had never worked with Black hair before. This was shocking, especially since she is a Black woman herself, working in a Black-owned salon.
She looked at my hair in disgust and immediately grabbed some detangler, saying she would work through it dry. I told her, "All you need to do is run some water through it and it will loosen up," but she continued huffing and puffing, clearly annoyed. Her body language made it obvious she didn't want to deal with my hair. When I asked if she was okay, she said she was fine but moments later, without any explanation, she walked out of the room and went to the front of the salon like she was about to pass out or cause a scene just to avoid finishing my hair.
The situation felt disgusting and discriminatory. I was left sitting there with my neck tilted back in the wash bowl, starting to cramp, until another stylist came over to finish washing my hair. When I asked what was wrong with the first stylist, she brushed it off like it was nothing.
I've never felt so uncomfortable in a place that was supposed to be welcoming to someone like me, as a Haitian-American woman. It was absolutely the worst salon experience I've ever had, and no woman should ever have to go through that level of unprofessionalism.
The owner claims her salon is "inclusive" and "different from others," yet even during my negative experience, she bragged about how she could move to newbury street and raise her prices because people "keep complaining" about them when, honestly, for the quality of service provided, the prices are not worth it.
In the end, my silk press only lasted two days. Overall, it was a terrible experience that has haunted me since.