January 14th, 2016
I called the downtown branch and was answered by a not so pleasant woman, to say the least. She made me feel like my call and questions were a nuisance. She was short and rude. It took 3 tries to get her name, Erica. Wether that is her actual name I can't tell. That should have stopped me from even making an appointment, but I shrugged it off to the fact that maybe she was having a bad day and let it go. When I arrived at the salon I was greeted and the student that was suppose to work on my hair arrived. Her name is Toni and she was very pleasant to be around. I told her I wanted a balayage done in my brown hair to create some streaks of copper. I showed her a picture and she got her instructor. Here is where the problem began. The instructor's name was Deb and she was NOT helpful. Every time Toni called her she seamed to be annoyed and bored. My hair has some chemicals in it due to a straightening process done a year ago and Deb seemed to get upset and frustated about the fact and recommended that Toni first tried to see if the bleach would work on my hair. After Toni did so and saw that it worked then Deb gave her the ok to start the balayage process. Toni started applying streaks of bleach throughout my hair and at NO moment did Deb come over to check and INSTRUCT her on technique and positioning of the streaks, which unfortunately turned out bad: straight lines of bleach at the top of the streaks. It did not make it seem natural. Finally it's the moment to choose the color to match to the picture I had showed Toni and Deb. Once again Deb was nowhere to be found and did not help Toni choose the correct color that I had showed in the picture. Result: My hair color and position of the balayage looked NOTHING like I had asked for. Once Toni was done she noticed that the color was not right and noticed that I was not happy. She got Deb to check it out and asked her what could we do to make it better. Deb then went into evasion mode and kept repeating "I have to think about it" in front of a dissatisfied customer! She said that once I came back to re-do the coloring (yeah, right!!!!!), which would fade in 4-6 weeks, then Toni would have to re-bleach my hair and apply the correct color. She never mentioned if that would be on the house or if I would have to pay for their mistake! At no point did she apologize for her oversight and offer a decent solution. I ended up paying full price for a poorly done job. It's been exactly a week since this happened, and I have not heard back from Deb on what the result is of her having to "think about" what to do to make this right! Needless to say, an absolutely unacceptable result. I will not be returning to The College of Hair Design, and I urge you to think twice before you schedule an appointment.