Hairdressers!

The BBQ Pit
1

Ok, so I went to get a haircut yesterday evening. I was thinking of going to Great Clips, but thought better of it and went to the salon next door. They could get me in right away, so I was happy.

So this amazonian woman with bright orange hair comes to get me, apparently this is my stylist. I was a little worried, but decided to go ahead with it. She takes me to the shampoo bowl, where I get a huge whiff of her cigarette reek. Then she talks to her kid while she’s shampooing me. I got to hear all about the homework and blah blah blah. I don’t want kids around me while I’m getting my hair done, if I did, I’d bring my own. Then she takes me to the chair where she rakes through my hair with her claw-like fingernails. I was pretty nervous about the haircut and told her so.

Throughout the cut, she says things like, “Poor thing, you don’t have much hair, do you?” Wtf? I have plenty of hair and I don’t know why this tacky bitch feels the need to say something like that. Then she asks me, in a snide tone of voice, if I do my own color. I said yes, and told her what I use on it and how I do it. She smugly insulted my color job, which gets compliments every day. And we’re talking about someone with bright orange hair, insulting my color.

She was standing in front of me cutting my bangs, while talking to her redneck boyfriend and I couldn’t help but notice her leathery tanning bed cleavage staring at me. It was a nauseating mixture of burnt skin and eau de gramma perfume. In front of me were pictures of her with her friends and boyfriend, dressed head to toe in '80s garb, with great big Ronald McDonald hair. No, the pictures were not from Halloween, this was her normal look.

So, the haircut turned out ok, but I have a real issue with the personal commentary about my hair color and style. If you’re a hairdresser you’re supposed to compliment your client, not try to make them feel badly about their hair. It’s like a doctor having good bedside manner. The whole time she was cutting I was freaking out that she might do something horrible to my hair. Thank God she didn’t, but it was still disconcerting. I only get a cut every 3 months for this exact reason. The hairdressers I’ve encountered have been bitches!! I don’t think they want to make other women look good at all.

Next time, I’m going to a guy.:smiley:

2

Sounds like you just got a winner. Eons ago when I used to occasionally redden my hair, I had one stylist express surprise that it wasn’t my natural color. One would think she’d have jumped at the opportunity to tell me how I was destroying my tresses and how coloring should only be done by a professional. Last haircut, I was a bit worried because the stylist had trendy hair, but she gave me exactly what I asked for - wish I’d gotten her name - I’m due for a trim.

3

Aren’t we all.

4

See, guys don’t have these sorts of problems.

All I have to say is “short Princeton” and buzz go the clippers for ten minutes.

All Done!

5

#2 buzz and just cut the rest a little.

Although some of them can even mess that up. I actually have to go to a salon and pay $16 to get a decent haircut.

We should put all the hairdressers and public phone cleaners on a spaceship and get rid of them.

6

I didn’t go to a hairdresser for many years, because i couldn’t find one that would cut my hair and not fill it with sticky, ‘body-enhancing’ styling products that I had to run home and wash out of my hair as soon as the cut was finished. I begged and pleaded and cajoled - ‘Please, no hairspray!’ - and for nothing.

Yes, I know it’s curly ! Yes, I know you think that when it comes to curly hair, the bigger, fluffier, and STICKIER the better ! But it’s MY FUCKING HAIR ! Keep your grubby hands off it !

… snarl …

7

I have my wife cut my hair.

I get the same sort of treatment as Indygrrl, except I also occasionally get snipped with the scissors.

It’s free, though.

8

Are you due “for a trim” or are you due “for some trim”? Clippers may not be appropriate in both cases. :eek:

9

I hear ya. I haven’t had a haircut in almost three years because I got sick and tired of hairdressers tsk-tsking over my split ends. (This is, of course, always a prelude to a sales pitch for a $15 bottle of conditioner, and I hate businesses that try to make money by feeding people’s insecurities.)

If there were only such a thing as a guaranteed no-small-talk, no-sales-pitch hairdresser’s, I’d go there no matter how much it cost.

10

i quit going to salons after my last hack job. I’ve got really curly hair and these little girls with their stick straight hair obviously don’t know the meaning of the sentence “my hair SHRINKS when it dries, like, to half the length!!” Doesn’t seem to matter. They still cut it to the length I specify WHILE IT’S WET. So of course, when it’s dry, all i’m left with is a little afro puff that I have to take an hour each morning to straighten so I can leave the house without a paper sack over my head. Every damn time…

I’ve tried going to “black” salons, only to be met with a bunch of “what the hell are you doin’ in here white girl??” stares.

There’s no room in this world for a white girl with an afro… sniff

11

I feel your pain. I hate hairdressers. I have never been to one who had a clue about my hair (which seems to be like yours).

Lucky I actually like my hair!

12

I am a hairdresser and sad to say even I find it hard to defend many hairstyliests.

But please don’t assume that all are like that. Its hard to please everyone but it does seem many styliests don’t try to please anyone. I never understood scissor happy hairdressers (those who take way to much off) Personaly I tend to take less, 1 I can always take more, 2 you have to come back sooner :smiley: and 3 I never figured out how to put it back on.

lezlers:

Try getting it cut dry. Go to the salon with your hair clean and ask for a dry cut, after the cut have it shampooed and check the evenness. Also if you know its gonna be uncontrolable at a length why ask for it that long, add an inch or so…you can always get more off but not added back on.

You have to understand we see your hair maybe once a month (and from the posts it doesn’t sound like you go to the same person all the time…) We do not know what your hair is like on a daily basis and please don’t assume we can tell by looking…its you that has to tell us. (but I admit not all listen)

Here is a few tips:

  1. Unless you either can’t help it or like a specific hairdresser there avoid chop shops (chain salons) They tend to hire newly graduated, or those who can’t find jobs in reputable salons

  2. When you find a styliest you like STICK with them and make sure they have your name and number incase they change salons. Tell them you want to be contacted so they know to take your info with them

  3. Don’t feel pressured into salon products you don’t want or need but understand that we are trying to make money too, most styliest work commishion on both survices and retail so every little bit helps.

  4. If for any reason you are feeling uncomfortable speek up or leave (unless of couse you are in the middle of the cut/chemical)

I won’t appoligize for them because many times it is the carelessness and or the lack of carring on the styliest part that causes clients to be unhappy (besides the fact they act like that makes ME more money) But I will say to PLEASE not feel we are all like that.

Now that said…

You really should try this shampoo…:stuck_out_tongue:

Willow_fire ducks and runs from the pit

13

Heh heh.

I quit going to the hack shops around here about 6 years ago because I decided on a particular style and I’ve stuck with it. I trim my own hair about once a month, and that’s about all it needs. (Life is so much easier when you have a head full of curly hair, and you keep it in a simple bob.)

Now, if I wanted to do something different with it, I’d go to a stylist. The last time I went to a stylist to do something different, I had my hair straightened. Blech. It took forever to grow out, and the actual “straightning” lasted all of a week on parts of my hair. I’ll just stick to my crazy hair dye and my mop-top, thank you.

14

go to a high class salon and get a student to cut your hair.
it’s cheap, they’re supervised, and they’re so nervous they HAVE to be polite.

works for me.

i had campest guy in dublin do my hair last week, and all i got was, “so, you’re growing out some dye? nice colour, by the way.”

15

After years of disasters, I finally found a terrific hairstylist. A 70-ish Italian guy, who works at Lord & Taylor’s. Used to style Lillian Gish’s hair in her later years, which tipped me off he was good. He does exactly the right thing, and listens to what I request! A gem. Hope he doesn’t retire . . .

16

The last time I got a trim I could not get this woman, at a chain, to trim my bangs straight. She both insisted on making them curve, which I hate, and they were uneven on top of that! I had to fix them myself when I got home because I was afraid to let her cut any more off.

Hello? You can’t CUT BANGS? I CAN CUT BANGS! And I never went to SCHOOL TO LEARN HOW!!!

I’m never going back THERE for sure. I have long, straight hair. All I wanted was a couple of inches of length taken off and a simple bang trim. If I could see the back of my head I’d do this myself. I trim my own bangs between actual cuts.

17

lezlers and all of the curly girls - I know what you mean. I followed my last hairdresser around slavishly (at $70 a cut) because he knew how to cut curly hair. Well that, and he would occasionally parade me around the salon and gush, “Just look at this divine curly hair!” Quite an ego boost, and of course he always received a nice tip! Sadly, he has moved to Florida.

18

I, too, have some seriously curly hair. It used to be remarkably easy to take care of–I just let it grow until the resulting triangle-shaped 'do became too pronounced. Then I had it cut.

Now my hair is thinning a bit, so I want to go shorter. I had a very flattering cut done about a month and a half ago, and it’s starting to grow out. I was out of town when I had the cut, though, so I can’t go back and see the same stylist. I’m thinking of going to a pretty well-known local salon (it’s kind of a chain–I think there are 2 or three of them throughout the town I live in) to have my hair “designed,” as they call it. I’d need help deciding on a new style.

<hijack> Anyone have a favorite hairstylist in the Columbus, Ohio area? I’d be happy to get any recommendations I can. </hijack>

19

I’m like lezlers–a white girl with Afro hair. I can either put a straightener on it and have hair that breaks off to shoulder-length and stays straight except when it’s humid (and I live in the South)–OR I can put a perm in it to make the frizz-waves actual curls, which I do. My perms last from 1 to 1 and 1/2 years.

I have an amazing stylist. Since I cut and color my own hair, I only see her once a year or so. But she is spectacular at perming my hair!

20

Thing is, when my hair is dry with no product in it, it’s just a huge frizz ball, even harder to cut. Plus, it looks nothing like my hair normally looks (with product in it) so we’d be running into the same problems. I know exactly how much my hair shrinks when it dries and I make sure to tell the hairdresser that. Many, many times. Just doesn’t seem to sink in past all that board straight hair is all.

Again, I make sure and tell the sylist repeatedly. And my the nodding head and “okay okay’s” I’m assuming they’re listening. But you know what they say about assuming…

Got that right. Everytime I’ve gone to a “supercuts” and that hasn’t been in years I’d always end up having to go home and re-cut my hair. What the hell was I paying for in the first place?

Trust me, if I ever find a sylist who can actually cut my hair without making my cry afterwards, I’ll turn stalker on their asses…

That’s the thing that sucked. My last hack-job, she started in the back, where I couldn’t see, so by the time I realized how short she was doing it (about 4 or 5 inches shorter than I specified) it was too late.

I know. Thank you for sticking up for the stylists, you’re a brave woman, you are. :smiley: