Zazen Salon Spa — Attraction in Bellingham

I paid, I believe, $80 for several salon services as part of a promotion (facial, wax, haircut and massage). After the haircut I received here I will never go back; I didn’t even redeem all the services I paid for. I’ll attach a photo of the haircut below. Mind you, I let the lady cutting my hair know that I wanted the smallest trim I could get because I was trying to grow my hair out. In the end, to fix her absolutely terrible job I ended up with about 6 inches off my hair. The person who fixed my hair was great, she did although mention several times it was a big project due to how uneven the cut was. Also, I let the first stylist know I didn’t want layers so this wasn’t even an attempt at layers. The second stylist had to cut off the 6 inches just because there were some pieces at my shoulder and others mid back. The only way to salvage it was to level it out to the shortest chunk. Despite visibly seeing how horrible the haircut was, the owner and manager both tried to charge me an additional amount to get it fixed. Eventually, after explaining how ridiculous that was and after several phone calls they finally said they’d do me a favor and “pay out of their own pocket” to get me a fixed haircut at their salon. I don’t know a single other salon that’d make a client pay extra for a very obvious mistake made on their part. I still had paid for the promotion and tipped both hairstylists, even the bad one, $10. The first hairstylist curled my hair afterwards so I wasn’t able to see just how awful it was when I was leaving! She also mentioned multiple times during my haircut that the stylists don’t actually make any money off the promotions and the management company gets all the money which made me feel bad and pressured to tip more. I’m not even sure they had a fully licensed person doing this because every time I asked what experience the person had, they ignored the question. The massage I received was in a very uncomfortable chair like the ones at the mall. She asked if it was comfortable and I explained it wasn't really because I have arthritis all down my spine and a pinched vertebrate which makes it uncomfortable to have that kind of pressure. She tried to adjust it to make it better but also mentioned she doesn’t use the chair much. Although it was only a 30 min massage she said she had to use the chair and couldn’t use the table. I found out later that both my other coworkers who got the exact same 30 min massage received one on the massage table. Not entirely sure why I wasn’t allowed to have a table when everyone else who went did?? Overall, it was a real bad experience with poor customer service and poor action taken by the owner in resolving such an awful ordeal. I never received a follow up call regarding the haircut or anything like that. All that happened is they “fixed it” leaving me with hair to my shoulders that used to be mid-back and some sections that were still left uneven....

As a bride I can't say I would recommend them to another bride if you're looking to do the two part trial and day of hair service. I booked the two part bridal hair that included the hair trial. When I went in for the trail I loved the facility and left feeling like it went really well. We had figured out how to do the updo that I really wanted and it looked great. The point of the trial being that the day of the wedding I could walk in feeling comfortable and confident that everything would already be figured out and knowing exactly how everything would look. She took pictures and a video so she knew how to do it and everything. Feeling comfortable with their capabilities I booked to get nails and toes done for me and my two bridesmaids as well as all of our hair for the day of. When it came to getting our nails done, we were all in general disappointed. The polish job on toes and nails wasnt worth the cost. We could have done a better job ourselves. It was the most expensive and disappointing job any of us had experienced. But we proceeded to get our hair done still because I already knew what to expect. Wrong. We showed up for hair the day of and the hairstylist had deleted all of her photos and video of my hair and didn't even apologize. She acted like it was no big deal that she was unprepared and had basically gotten paid to do a job during the trial that was completely pointless. My hair the day of did not end up looking how we had planned during the trial and I wasn't able to accommodate my veil. Not to mention the stylist commented on how I needed to correct the coloring in my hair. When I informed her I had paid another hair stylist to do it only the day before she told me she could fix it. I never thought anything was wrong with the color of my hair and found that to be a rude comment. The part that really bothered me about that was that I ended up paying the 140 for what ended up being the single day bride hair which costs 75 bucks since she started from scratch the day of. And then both my bridesmaids got charged for an updo when neither of them got one done. I had picked simpler styles so they wouldn't have to pay for an intricate updo cost. They should have been charged partial updo at most. All in all things seemed to be charged an upcharge for services we didn't actually get. I felt like as a bride who paid for the extra service of the trial and piece of mind on the day of my wedding, that this was a steep cost for not getting that at all. The facility is beautiful inside and conviently placed next to the hotel bellwether for anyone getting married there. If you're a bride who doesn't have any expectations on how you want your hair done then go for it. Our hair did look nice, not going to deny that. But I was really bothered by the fact that I didn't get what I paid for the trial for or that what they got was an updo charge for my...

I recently brought my daughters in for a last minute spa day as a graduation gift for both of them. I was super grateful and impressed that Zazen was able to work us in and make our day feel special. I decided to book a cut/color to get ready for my daughters upcoming wedding. I was scheduled with Sydney today. I came in with multiple reference photos of what I was wanting for both color and cut...there was even a video of how to get the cut I was after. I had a considerable amount of length to come off. This is not the first time I have gone from long to short.

The red color I was going for was a mix of highs and lows with an all over color just a bit darker than my natural red shade. I wanted my gray grow out to blend in. The color I received I can only describe as red wine....it looks burgundy/cherry. Zero lows were put in. There is a line around my face that looks like a month of grow out that was never colored.

The haircut is nothing like I had asked for. It's way to short. I even had to ask to have my neck cleaned up...its THAT short! There is no way I can style this like I wanted for the upcoming wedding. The more I run my fingers through it at home, the more mistakes I find. Its bith the wrong kength and shape. It truly is a disaster....think little kid cutting their own hair type of disaster.

I was honestly speechless with what I received. I just wanted OUT of the salon. I paid the $280 that I was charged along with the expected 20% tip. I am not going to be THAT person who does the wrong thing by not tipping, even though my end result was terrible. I chalk this up as a learning experience and to not trust that a higher end salon actually vettes their employees. Sydney disappeared as soon as I was out of her chair. I was in tears by the time I was in my car. I now know this salon had two different levels of stylists...I obviously got the Junior stylist, even though I was never given the choice.

Today is Wednesday...I have no idea how I am going to have this fixed before I leave on Friday. I have no problem paying for a quality haircut/color that makes me feel good, this disaster just has me in tears. I...