I'm surprised about the high ratings considering what a complete waste of money my appointment…read moreunfortunately turned out to be. I'd been avoiding a haircut since my last experience at a different place a few years ago was so bad, but the cut I got at Salon Namoo was actually way worse...possibly one of the worst I've ever gotten.
I didn't get the name of the "stylist" since she didn't introduce herself, and I wouldn't publicly name and shame anyway. She was running behind due to wrapping up her previous customer, but I wasn't in a hurry so nbd. I showed her several inspo pix and said I understood they were different cuts, it was just to give a sense of the casual style with lots of volume and movement that I wanted, and I asked her to choose the elements she felt would fit my face best. First red flag was her saying I needed to choose a specific pic for her to follow, but I went with it and chose one that was very sort of beachy-messy-shaggy. Second red flag was her starting to cut the length without really comparing the two sides. My old stylist, two states away, would stop and pull the ends down on both sides of my face to check evenness in the mirror multiple times during a cut. This stylist glanced but my hair on my right was curving inward closer to my neck rather than hanging straight, and partway through the cut, I finally asked if the right side wasn't longer than the left. To her credit, she did check instead of blowing me off, and confirmed I was right. Now, I'm a middle aged woman who's gotten a fair number of quality, layered haircuts in my life, and as mentioned, my old stylist was as precise as could be (and did beautiful blowouts too...I miss her so much), so I wasn't feeling good about the cutting I was seeing. It looked kind of careless, and I wasn't seeing the kind of texturing I expected, but then she said she was going to blow it out and finish dry-cutting, so I tried to trust the process. Third red flag, she blew my hair out flat, including at the crown of my head. No volume. More trimming, and it looked flat and nothing like the pic (which she asked to see again multiple times throughout!). Then she announced she was done, and I must have made a surprised face, because then she said, do you want me to style it like the picture? Um, YES? How is that a question?? So she busted out a flat iron and proceeded to iron my already flat hair even straighter and smoother, but with weird little flips here and there on the last inch or so of the ends. (She was late for the appt after me as well.) She proudly showed me the back with the mirror and I just said ok so I could pay and leave. It was so bad that I felt embarrassed walking down the block to my car, and when I got home, my teen ran up with a look of mild horror mixed with concern and said, do you...like it? I said no and she gave a huge sigh of relief that I hadn't gone crazy. I immediately took a shower so I could restyle it myself, and when I did, I realized it wasn't only the length that had been uneven. Not only had my right side been longer, but there was more bulk left as well, so I gave myself a trim to even it out. If I had gotten the cut I wanted, I wouldn't be able to ponytail anymore, but since she didn't get anything about the proportions and texturizing right...I'm back in a ponytail just like before I wasted the money. And no, I didn't say anything beyond pointing out that the length wasn't even, because imo if you jack up my hair, why would I let you potentially make it even worse?
Tl;dr...I showed a pic of a shaggy, beachy style, and walked out with helmet head like a blast from the 70's. One star for well-kept, clean, and convenient location near Bella Bottega and another for the very pleasant shampoo service.
