Fun thread! I've been going to the same stylist for 15 years, and I love her.
I left my previous stylist for 2 reasons. First, he had a bit of a drinking problem, and sometimes his cuts were better than others. Once, when I'm sure he'd been drinking too much, he actually charged me the time of day on the clock on his wall as he finished (it was 11.48 or something like that). Second, and the last straw, he cut off more than I asked for right before my 10 year high school reunion. For about 3 years he'd been giving me the same cut - just touching the shoulders in back, slightly tapered on the sides - and I asked for just my usual trim, but for some reason (maybe the bottle!) that time he cut it off shorter and even all around without the tapering. I looked kind of like Buster Brown, and I'd been known for my hair in high school. Ugh.
Right after that I found a new hairstylist by asking a neighbor with a cute haircut who did her hair, and I've gone to that stylist ever since. She gives great cuts and has been very supportive as I've gone back and forth from shoulder length to bra strap length and once to short hair. It's a small shop with just two stylists, so it's an intimate, family atmosphere. She's also about $10 less per cut than many of the salons in town.
I have yet to ever get my hair cut by the same person twice. My #1 turnoff is if the stylist says something negative about the condition of my hair in a non-tactful way. My hair is very bleached, yes. It is also frizzy, and is a bit damaged. However, what they don't know is that my hair is naturally frizzy/wavy and has always felt coarse when it has been blow-dryed, even after using a flat iron and product to smooth it. They assume that I am an amateur who has fried my hair with bleach, and the condescending tone offends me. Tact is a valuable skill, and too many stylists lack it.
I also expect that if I've paid $50 for a haircut, I will not go home and find long pieces of hair that were accidentally missed and not cut. I have had three very sloppy hairdressers who all did that, and never saw me again.
I'm pretty picky, but some of the stylists I've been to were pretty interolable, hurried, and overpriced. Let's hope my haircut with a new stylist this week goes better. ;)
She made a very snide remark about women who "insist on relaxing their hair" so I was already a little leery, then she changed my follow up appointment 3 times. I moved on.
Relaxed 4b/4a (right side only) Big Chop 11-6-04 Goals: healthy hair, then growth to terminal length
Have not had a regular stylist in a number of years, not have I been to a beauty shop in a number of years.
Part of this is because I've been growing my hair out quite long and
give myself trims. Why I am leery to go to a stylist?
1. Many stylists seem to not like to work on longer hair.
2. Trims - you specifiy one length and the stylist does what he/she wants to do regardless.
3. Patience to do the job correctly. I've run into several
situations where you need something a bit more complex - say, your hair
actually shaped to its length and specific natural wave or curl and the
stylist merely gives you the cookie-cutter hair cut.
When I've gotten my hair professionally highlighted, the best results
are usually when they do that sectional foil-highlighting method.
This can be time-consuming and I have only found a minority of stylists
that will actually do it this way. Most refuse to do the foil
method and just slap that plastic cap on your head and rip delicate
sections of your hair through those tiny holes to highlight. Now,
I actually can (and have done) do this myself at home. Why should
I pay some person to damage my hair in this manner. (Note - I
have long, thick, but rather individually fine strands that can break
easily if snagged.)
4. On occasion, I have gone in and chosen a style out of the many
style books that customers can peruse. Or I have brought in a
clip of an example of how I want my hair cut/styled. It never
seems to make a difference becausew I usually end up with thesame
cookie-cutter cut/style.
myampris
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I used to have a FABULOUS stylist - she LISTENED to what I wanted and
did a great job executing the cut I wanted, she was always up-to-date
on new trends and techniques, etc. Since I moved, I have had the
worst hair experiences of my entire life! I've been tempted to
just buy a plane ticket back to my old city and have Mandy cut my hair
again - it would be about the same amount of money for the ticket as
what I've wasted on rude, distracted, arrogant, and ignorant stylists
I've gone to. (sorry to be so sarcastic - just got my hair cut badly
again yesterday).
I went to the same hairdresser my whole life. She's a family friend and she always did EXACTLY what I wanted- from super long to super short. I stopped going to her almost three months ago because a) she cut too much off, b) she's hair dryer/iron happy, and c) she bleached my hair three times in one week last summer, and that's why I still have to work so hard to keep my hair healthy. I asked her to make my hair lighter, but I could've waited a week or so in between bleachings. It's a miracle my hair didn't fall out.
"If you're not failing every now and again, it's a sign you're not doing anything very innovative."
-Woody Allen
Hi all! I changed stylists because I was not seeing any growth and I just plain didn't like the way she styled my hair. The styles were always hard and dry looking never soft and full of body.
http://public.fotki.com/babyimastarr
Porpoise
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I left my last hairstylist because she charged $10 EXTRA because my hair was long and really thick.
I love my current hairstylist. She is so nice. She does exactly what I want and loves my thick wavy/curly hair. She showed me how to make my hair more manageable.
My previous hairstylists all complained about the thickness of my hair. E
I stopped going to hair stylists because no matter who I went to they did their own method after I very specifically told them how they needed to handle my hair.
At the time, I had shoulder length straight hair. If the stylist
cut it fancy - pinning the top up and cutting it in sections then it
did a flip (which I did NOT want) and if they just wet it down and cut
it straight across then it stayed down and behaved. I finally
went door to door in the college dorms asking people if they thought
they could cut straight. If they didn't say "no" I handed them
the scissors and told them "don't worry, if you screw it up it will
grow again". Those were the best haircuts - took about 2 minutes to do.
Then after I graduated I did it myself.
Recently I decided to update my look, something more fun, and went to
an expensive stylist who came highly recommended. The initial cut
was fantastic. But it turned out shecan't follow existing styles,
and I left the 6 week touchup looking like I was 20 years older than I
am - I had a bowl on my head. Not young. Not good. I called her
two days later and she couldn't get me in for four weeks to fix her mess.
So I hacked at it myself and I am going back to straight, shoulder
length, do it myself hair. Also - during the touch-up cut, she
cut my bangs real short (I told her not to touch them) and five minutes
later she said "you must have cut your hair, look at what you did to
your bangs, you will have to grow them out" WHAT?!! Crazy lady...!
ammonia
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because she didnt do a good job and my extensions only lasted, lets see.. like 3 days! it was horrible!..but you get what u pay for and i deserved it lol. thats what i get for going to cheap places. i miss my old hairdresser.. she was real good and it was worth every penny there.
I'm pretty unhappy with my current stylist, but I haven't switched yet. I have extremely thick hair and it's past my shoulder blades in length. She doesn't like it. She keeps asking me "When are you going to let me cut this?" She's also WAAAAAAY too rough when she shampoos my hair. She rubs too hard and she pulls. It's a miserable experience. She also does at least one or two other people while she's working on me. She'll wash my hair, cut it, then stick me under the dryer to work on another client. I've been going to her for about nine years so I hesitate to make a change. It also complicates things that I go in with my mother, who recently had a stroke, and she's happy with her. My stylist is taking classes to go to physical therapy school, so I'm hoping maybe she'll stop cutting hair. The problem is, I like her as a person. When my Mom was in the hospital for a GI bleed, she offered to let me stay with her. (The stylist and the hospital were both 100 miles away from my town). I went to another salon for a conditioning treatment this week. I liked the stylist, so I'm really debating on what to do.
sporty_chick
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I have never gone to the same stylist on my own more than once so I left them all.
Between 1997 and 2001 I would stop at different salons while I was
driving along the river to watch ships. I would ask for 1/2" trim of my
then at least 20-25" hair and they would do a good job. I never
switched because of a bad job. I just wanted to try a new place each
time.
My last trim by another person was by a fellow student when I was in
cosmetology school in May 2001. I let her trim it for a grade.
I left school soon after and I did not get a trim again until March
26th 2004 when I started trimming my own hair using Feye's self
trimming.
http://members.fortunecity.com/feye/trim/
Wow, some of these stories shock me as a hairdresser, i hope you know that all hairstylists arent like this. Some hairstylists do not like to deal with long hair, they are afraid of it, which is ashame, because long hair is a lot of fun to do, also a lot of these stories seem like the stylist was just not listening. Keep looking you'll find someone.
My last hair dresser was a hoot! She was the old town spinster, highly ghetto with nails LITERALLY 9-12 inches long. I went to her just once in desperation because she had cheap cheap prices.
I supposed she managed well enough using the palms of her hands to style, and wash (or should I say rub) my hair but I literally felt like I was getting my hair done by edward scissor hands.
To top it all off she overlapped my relaxer during the touch-up...I'm talking about overlapping all of my hair spare the 1 inch at the very end.
Suffice it to say, I never went back.
LisaSue
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The guy who used to do my highlights did them with foil and did a great job! However, and I know this sounds petty, but he was really just too chatty. I know he was trying to be friendly, but I felt like I was on trial with all his questions. I don't have anything to hide, but he wanted to know everything, where I worked, how long I worked there, what job did I have before that one, where I went to school, if I'm married, how many brothers and sisters do I have, and stuff like that. I don't mind talking about myself a little bit, but it just got too uncomfortable after awhile. When I go to the salon, I really prefer to relax, and I couldn't with all his talking and asking questions. I know that some people like to have conversations with their stylists, and there's nothing wrong with that at all, but stylists should try to "read" their clients a bit better and if the client doesn't sound like he or she wants to talk, then it would be nice if the stylist didn't push.
snoopval
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LisaSue- It's not petty, because you are paying to have the best experiance possible. However maybe if you understood the behavior more you wouldn't be as unnerved by it. There are two reason stylists usually do this. One- is because there new and they get uncomfortable, so if they can get into a conversation with you they feel better. I used to think that if my client wasn't chatty they were actually unhappy with the service!
2. In school you are taught to talk, so he might not be talkative actually and is desperatly grappaling with topics. The usual rule is if you get someone talking about them, then they enjoy that. He's not asking you all these questions to be odd, there just conversation starters.
Now some stylists don't like to small talk at all, and there is a group of stylists that only talk about your hair. So the whole service is like informational on your hair and how you should do it, etcetera.
The next time this happens, you could turn the questions around, he really wasn't being pusy, so you could ask him questions about him, how long has he been working, does he enjoy this, what's his favorite thing to do, is he from the area. Maybe you would feel more comfortable with a chatty stylist if the whole conversation wasn't revolved around you.
buzzedboblover
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It seems to me from reading the posts in this thread that the most common reason for people changing hairdressers is that the stylists insist on doing as they please as opposed to doing what the client asks them to do, I have experienced this myself and know just how infuriating it can be. I must ask the question of stylists "Why do so many of you insist on doing this ?". Any theories, answers ?
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buzzed- that is a good question, as a stylist let me give you some theories. First off you have to understand what most stylists biggest fear is. It is having a client ask for something atrocious, you giving it to them, and them telling all there friends that you were the one who did there hair. What the stylists don't realize is this. You know that your friend has odd taste, when you see her get the exact haircut she wants, your not thinking 'God i'm never going to go to her' your thinking 'wow someone actually made my friend happy, maybe i'll check her out.'
The second thing is and i don't mean this to sound condescending but we do learn a lot about hair, and face shapes. Did you know that there is such a thing as the perfect face shape? Did you know that just your haircut can make you smaller, bigger, thinner, have that ideal face shape? So sometimes we get a client who asks for something and we know that they are not asking for the right thing, and we know that if they wore what we suggested that they would look absolutly fabuous. It just kills us to see someone attractive who gets a style that we know does not look good. However the mature stylist realizes that it's not about what other people think, it's if the customer is happy. If you make people happy then you will surely not have to worry about business.
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