The Beauty Institute — Attraction in Ambler

I went in with the intention of getting a subtle sunkissed look. I showed them a picture of what I wanted. Just a shade or two lighter than the super dark hair I already had. As she looked at the picture she said “oH you want a balayage” and I said “ya sure... but it has to be subtle and not look so obvious because I want it to be low maintenance.” She made me feel like she understood what I was saying. I also told her I had to leave at a certain time. Which meant I was giving her a good 3-3.5 hours. As she was doing my hair she realized she wasn’t going to have enough time to tone or dry my hair. So I wouldn’t get to see the final product till it air dried at home. I was ok with it. I mean... was I suppose to go home once she told me that? She already had done a part of my hair! That was the first mistake. Underestimating how much time it was really going to take to do my hair. I would have been totally ok with coming back. But that wasn’t the case. So here I am looking as she does my hair. She had her Instagram handle on the mirror so I decided to check her work. I saw it and I was frightened. I asked her if my hair was going to be like that and she said yes. And I said but that is so light. I showed her my picture and few other pictures for reference again and said “please I want it subtle... like sunkissed” and she said “if it’s too light we can always go darker. It’s easier to go darker”. So I thought after that convo she would get what I wanted. wrong! So 3.5 hours I’m out the salon. With another appointment to get toner and my hair cut 2 weeks later! So as my hair is drying I realize that my hair is not what I asked for. When my hair completely dried I was mad! I had to go out in public like this? I kept telling my self “my hair is orange because there was no time to put toner. It’s ok.” But it was not ok. There was no way if they put toner on this that this would look subtle. This hair job looked like I got a hair dye box from the store and did it my self. It looked choppy, it looked obvious, and worst it looked like 85% of my hair was this ugly bronzy blond color. So 2 weeks pass and I was hoping they would give me another stylist. No they give me the same air head. She sees that I’m clearly upset and asks “seems like your upset you want to explain what’s going on?” And so I said that this isn’t what I asked for. The color is way too light but maybe if we do the toner it will be darker? But not only the color but it looks like my whole hair is blond. Her response was defensive. “We did toner last time but I guess we can do another one today.” This whole time I was trying to justify the fact that my hair was bronzy because there was no toner. But now the stylist is telling me there was toner the whole time?! So I explained how I thought my whole hair was the bronzy blond color and she said and I quote “well that’s what a balayage is. And there are a lot of dark pieces back here.” It felt like she was justifying it instead of saying something like “ok... how can we fix it? Or make you feel better about this?” Anyway at that point I knew I couldn’t risk her “trying” to fix this problem she believes really isn’t a problem. I just said... “you know what. I just want you to put me back to my natural color.” I After she colored and washed (which wasn’t really a wash... it felt like a rinse) I asked for a cut. I am so grateful the teacher cut my hair. Because i actually like the haircut. After the hair cut the student came back to blow dry. Oh my gosh that was bad! By the end of it my hair felt like yet again I did it. I know it was rude but I asked for her brush so I wouldn’t leave the salon like a greasy frizz ball. So you think I’m done? No. When I see my husband the first thing he says is “wow you have a blond patch.” when my hair is up or when I’m under certain lighting such as the sun- you can see this bronzy blond patch clear as day!! I can’t believe I paid a total of $120 plus 2 hours of driving so that I can now sport a patch not even a strand but a PATCH of brassy orange...

Normally I have pretty decent experiences here for my hair and id easily give 2 stars. But there’s a new teacher that lacks tact and doesn’t supervise the students like they need.

I am aware that this is a school and the students are learning and sometimes things take longer. I had a simple all over dark brown color with a blonde money piece. I arrived at 10am and by 4pm my hair was barely finished. I’ve had full head of highlights on long hair and it didn’t take 6 hours. It was a little extreme.

The teacher was no help and seemed to be more into entertaining other students with stories of how her mother knew Frank Sinatra or whatever than actually helping the students. They all waited around trying to ask for her help or advice. This was a new teacher, not the ones I’m used to who are usually there and are excellent. This teacher walked around telling everyone how the school “Begged her to come and teach because she’s such an expert.” The student painstakingly painted the hair dye on tiny sections of my hair. The teacher should’ve been around to show her a better way to do it. It took her an hour to apply dye to my chin length hair. I emphasized when I came that I wanted a bright blond moneypiece, not Caramel colored. It was already blonde but needed to be touched up. Eventually the teachee told the student to pull the foils out (for the sake of time) and said this color will match better anyway and she thinks it will match better. I appreciated the student. The student objected saying this wasn’t the color I wanted but the teacher still instructed her to pull the foils. Not only did I leave without the color I wanted, but mainly the experience with the teacher was less than desired. I said I did have to leave by 4:15pm bc I can’t be late to pick up my daughter from Daycare because I get charged if I’m late. The teacher replied “that’s why I never put my kids in daycare. I kept them at home with me.” I thought it was rude and missing the point. I told her I’m a solo parent and didn’t have a choice. She then added that she was a single parent and she made it work and did whatever she had to do. In no way should a customer ever be treated the way this teacher...

Had highlights done last week on Wed. Looked nice initially, was definitely lighter blonde than I wanted, but certainly have no expectations of it being perfect when students work on my hair. I'm not picky about it. When I got home and went to put my hair up in a ponytail, I realized there was a huge several inch streak of harsh yellow blond hair smack in the top middle of my head. No matter how I tried to part my hair, it looked really bad. Like a cheap mohawk skunkish look. I called the salon and Judy kindly helped me make an appointment to come back in to fix it on Friday. Friday morning comes and I get a call that the appointment is cancelled, some sort of building issue. I'm then rescheduled for Monday (today) at 10:15 am. I show up for my appointment, there's no one at the desk and all the people there tell me I must have it wrong, they never schedule appointments on Monday. I show them my confirmation on my phone. Some other woman with dark hair (not Judy, who for the record, was very nice and professional) eventually comes out and says they have no one who can help me, that I'll have to make yet ANOTHER 4th appointment and come back another day. Apparently the person they had to do my hair isn't there and there's nothing they can do. Very weird since the place is filled with people, including the original girl who did my hair and another nice man who explained it would be easy to fix and there were a few options. I really don't understand, this was supposed to be an easy fix (a toner or something to at least cut the harsh color? I'm not expecting miracles.) I would expect with a mistake they would do what they could to make it right. I don't get it - the woman seemed not to care at all. Just really bad customer service. If you go here be super careful. I suggest looking your hair over very carefully before you leave. If there's a problem, it's not likely to be fixed once you leave. Surely will NOT...