Oh
@TheGlossy I'm so sorry you had such a terrible experience!
I'm devastated for you!
I want to say right off the bat that from what I can tell,
this is very, very salvageable by any experienced colourist who understands what you want.
The salon and individual members of staff sound bewilderingly poor - I'm so confused by them not wanting to look at your records, I wonder if they were purged or the new staff don't understand the system or something. They all sound really inexperienced.
Your loyalty to and satisfaction with the salon was based on the work of people who are no longer there, if I understand you correctly - the building owes you nothing, especially if your notes are no longer there.
How are you feeling about letting them try to fix it vs going somewhere else for a little colour correction?
Like
@OnlyHereForTheLolz I'd usually advise you let the salon try to fix it (especially before spending more money somewhere else), but you've really got to go with your gut on this one.
I'll have a go at trying to work out what's gone on here in case it's helpful to you in your journey to the hair that makes you feel great.
This passage has some clues:
I let my hair grow out and it hadn't been tinted since before COVID so it was in pristine condition. The hairdresser told me the only colour should could give me was a dark chocolate brown because my natural hair is black. She advised if I wanted a lighter shade of brown, I'd need to do a balayage.
So tint doesn't lift - it doesn't lighten your hair and that's what you want to achieve, generally speaking, right? So yes, a hairdresser could apply a tint to your black hair and the best you could achieve in the brown spectrum would be a dark brown.
If you want to go lighter (which I think you do?) I'd be offering a permanent colour and/or highlights - I probably wouldn't be offering balayage as the first option because, if I've understood you correctly, you're looking for an all-over lighter brown appearance with maybe some fine dimensional highlights (probably not blonde, but shade/s of tonal brown). Balayage is generally more useful for larger slices of lighter colour painted on in a fairly natural looking way, usually concentrated on the midlengths and ends, rather than a more evenly distributed sprinkling of colour as fine highlights could offer which can go closer to the root.
I think they've fundamentally misunderstood what you want at this stage already.
When you say...
I went by what I used to do in the past (brown at the top and through the lengths with lighter streaks - not full on highlights - here as halo and there but really well blended with the root).
... Are you describing something like what we now call a
root smudge or
root melt? Because that is something I might actually suggest balyage for.
These are all questions and clarifications I'd be asking along the way if I was doing your hair. It is absolutely not your fault you didn't use their terminology to get your point across - this is a huge part of their job - to establish exactly what the client wants in order to do that for them.
Did you show them pictures of what you wanted?
I'm so glad you spoke to the colourist and they did something at the time, although I'm cross that they tried to tell you what you wanted. I'm glad the manager was receptive and willing to fix it. You should definitely be seeing a senior colourist for the correction and they should 100% understand
exactly what you're describing before they start.
To be very frank, the salon/staff sound not only rude and unhelpful, but a little bit old fashioned - what I think you're describing is a not-uncommon contemporary look, and what they've delivered seems like an interpretation of what you asked for, delivered by someone who has had no professional development and not kept on top of trends & techniques for some time.
Ooor they're completely inexperienced -
they are certainly not experienced in helping people.
Please, please don't attempt to fix this yourself. Please don't put box colour on your beautiful hair - it will make any future fix or salon work very, very difficult.
I really hope you can pursue this until you get what you wanted - you really deserve to both feel great and get what you paid for.
Just to reiterate - this should be a fairly simple colour correction & fix and there shouldn't be any serious harm done to your beautiful hair.
Please let us know how you get on - I've got everything crossed for you!
Apols all for the essay!
Nothing to be sorry about! I agree, it's just hair at the end of the day!
It was a complete fluke. The D-link snapped. it must have been faulty.
not that I'd want to anyway since it's two nights an not one, but my area has nothing an family aren't confident at taking him since he's quite the handful, he's a indoor bun as well so can't do outdoor places since he's never built up his coat plus he's only 6m so this is first winter too