Let me start off by saying that the salon is gorgeous and the stylists I’ve dealt with were extremely friendly and welcoming, which makes this review that much more difficult to write.
I came in wanting to lighten and brighten up my existing balayage, which is a medium blonde with rose gold tones, and bring it up a little bit closer to my roots. I also expressed that I wanted a “shadow root” close to my natural colour for low maintenance purposes. This is a style I’ve had for over 7 years now and I have had it done at other salons and even at home myself without any issues. I just figured this is a routine touch up for me, but this is where I’m wrong.
I showed a photo of what I wanted to the first stylist that worked on my hair as well as describing in detail what I wanted. But as soon as she started applying the bleach, I knew she hadn’t listened. I’ve never had a balayage applied at a salon the same way that traditional highlights were done. Figuring that she would go in with a darker dye at the roots later to achieve the effect I wanted, I stayed quiet. After the service was done, there was no “shadow root”. Just bleach applied close to the root that looked like grown out highlights - not what I had asked for at all. I left the salon thinking this didn’t look so bad. However, upon a closer look at the work that was done once I was in my car, it is clear that the roots where the bleach was applied appeared brassy, with blunt horizontal lines. And my ends were over processed. The colour of my hair was almost green. And while it was explained to me that she didn’t think she could get my hair as light as I wanted, I also didn’t expect the colour to be so muddy. Once I washed my hair, there was at least 6 different tones in there and the ends of my hair felt like straw.
It was so bad that I ended up reaching out to the salon looking for a resolution, which is something I’ve never done before. They contacted me within 48 hours offering to have one of their senior stylists fix up my hair. I happily agreed to this, which in hindsight was a huge mistake. While the senior stylist did lighten the top half of my hair and the colour looked more even, it still isn’t the colour I asked for nor was it a balayage with a shadow root. You can clearly see where the bleach was applied in a blunt horizontal line in many places and I’m just honestly baffled. Not only that, due to the top half of my hair being severely damaged, there’s a ton of breakage and the bottom layers, which was not colour corrected by the second stylist, is clearly visible with all the uneven tones.
I basically walked away from this experience with damaged hair and having to pay another salon to correct the mistake.
Pictures 1-7: After first service
Pictures 8-9: After second service
5 years ago