I had my hair done by Jess once previously and she did a great job. Her highlighting skills are…read moregreat, she did make a mistake by missing the highlights where my hair parts the first time but I decided to let it go because the rest looked great!
This time I came in with the intention of having my roots re-highlighted and thought that maybe we could try blending the blond into something more natural instead of being Hollywood blonde. I showed her my Pinterest images and she said it was "bronde!" I asked her if it was okay to change my hair appointment into that because I had originally booked a roots and haircut and she said it was fine. I wasn't sure what to put down for the original appointment to begin with, all I knew what that my roots had grown out. She later used that against me as one of the reasons not to give me back a refund.
The highlighting and lowlights were going fine but everything went drastically wrong once toner was applied. She rinsed my hair and I'm looking at my ends while it's wet and I can already tell it's too dark. She's saying "it's just dark because it's wet." And "once we blow dry it will lighten." She blow dried one section of my hair to see if it was too dark, and I confirmed it was. This was dark ash brown hair. Nothing close to bronde. I ask her if we can lift the toner, she says "fine, break my heart, why don't you." She grabs Malibu CPR and takes me back to the sink to try and lift some of the toner out. It unfortunately only lifts it a little. She tells me "it's lifted it I can tell."
I'm trying to convince myself that maybe it's okay. I've already said "it's too dark" multiple times, so then I say things like "maybe I have blonde blindness" or something. She says "it looks exactly like the photos you showed me." I'm thinking it doesn't at all.
She cut and blow dries my hair, I'm watching her cut my layers as she's talking to me, she's adjusting my chair to all different levels after making cuts, she isn't paying attention and I'm thinking to myself, 'that isn't how you cut layers properly.' I'm thinking that maybe I'm just exaggerating and that I need to just let the process happen.
She blow dries and I see the entirety of my hair. I say, "it is very pretty, but it's just too dark." And that "my manager is going to be mad bc it's brown." I tell her I have a callback tomorrow, and my hair is too dark again (I'm an actor.) All she does is shrug and say "it'll fade after a few weeks of washing." I am so shocked that I just stand there and wait. She's avoiding looking me in the eye while I'm waiting for her to say, "let's reschedule and add some highlights back in to lighten it." Or something!!! And she doesn't. She has another costumer coming in.
So I paid her and left.
I panic and start looking up ways to strip some of the toner out of my hair. I'm thinking the Malibu CPR didn't work, but I don't want to turn my hair into a brassy mess either by using a powerful stripper at home. So I go to the store and get head and shoulders, I panic wash my hair multiple times that evening and it does nothing.
Head and shoulders, then purple shampoo, five times. I'm crying, I'm panicking, i'm trying to see if there are any hairdressers that can take me last minute first thing in the morning and of course there's no one.
So, I go to bed and wake up to look in the mirror only to find that my hair oxidized in my sleep. The toner continued to darken my hair. The top is ash brown highlights and the lowlights have turned dark muddy brown down at the ends. I am crying.
This is NOT what I asked for.
I went to my cousin and she advised me to use the head and shoulders on my hair while it's dry, I crush vitamin c into it for added measure and it lifts my hair enough that the highlights are no longer ash brown. I do my call back last minute, stressed and very upset.
I'm so angry over everything that transpired, I want to get my hair properly fixed, but I don't trust Jess to do it anymore. So I asked her kindly for a refund and she refused. When I asked her a second time for a refund, she then gave me a run down on why it was my fault that it turned out that way and that she couldn't refund me. I eventually acquiesced to her reasons and I regret doing that. The only thing she wanted to try and fix was the cut, the rest she blamed me exclusively for and doubled down that she gave me what I asked for.
On camera it looks lighter than it is in person, so I asked my friend what she thinks after seeing it in person and she said it's not what I asked for. I've asked family members who have confirmed for me that it's fully brown and not "broned" as well.
I can deal with hair gone wrong, but it was her lack of accountability over it, the blaming me, the shrugging and saying it will lighten in two weeks, the lack of action towards fixing it, the $260 out of my wallet, and the deep unhappiness I feel looking in the mirror that made me realize I had to leave this review.
