Aveda Arts & Sciences Institute Minneapolis — Attraction in Minneapolis

I'm currently a student at the U, and was looking to get my hair highlighted and cut before I went home for break. The day of the appointment, I arrived right on time. We talked about what I was looking for, just an average full foil highlight for a natural blonde. My stylist suggested that we do some low lights in addition to highlighting. I was hesitant to agree at first, since I was there for a highlighting service, but the student convinced me to try it, telling me it would "add more dimension" to my blonde hair. I agreed, and the stylist began the foiling process.

My hair strands are pretty fine, but I have a decent amount of hair. Yet it took the stylist 5 hours just to apply the foils. The entire service usually takes around 4-5 hours at the Institute, and takes my stylist at home 3 hours. The student then proceeded to spend 45 minutes pulling out all the foils, getting me ready to go to the bowl.

Once we arrived at the bowl, I was 6 hours in. While getting my hair washed, a decent amount of water seeped down my shirt twice. Since my hair strands are on the finer side, they tend to tangle easily. I warned my stylist of this before heading to the bowl, and before the appointment started. To try and combat the issue, the student applied a copious amount of leave-in conditioner to my hair.

After a long time at the bowl, we finally went back to the chair. At this point I was one of only a handful of clients left in the establishment. It was around 3:45 at this point. Technically, they close at 4 PM, yet I was no where near being done. It took three different stylists to brush out my hair so it could be cut. My stylist was trying to be speedy, since they had an interview at 4:30 PM via Zoom. To try and speed up the process, the stylist began to cut my hair from the back while two different students stood on each side of me, continuing to brush out my hair... I couldn't possibly understand how my hair would end up looking after being cut while my headed bobbed side to side from constant brushing.

It was 4:35 PM at this point, and the stylist was still cutting my hair. They decided to join the interview with a potential employer while finishing the cut. The interviewer said to reschedule, and told the student to give full attention to me, their client. An instructor, who seemed to be the last teacher in the facility, completed the final "cut check" on my hair, fixing a few pieces here and there. Originally, I had asked for layers since I have a decent amount of hair. I didn't receive any, and was told by the instructor that if I wanted them, I would need to "come back another time". Since the stylist was so urgent to get out, I ended up leaving with sopping wet hair: no blow-dry or style, which is included with the service.

I checked out at 4:45 PM. I had spent almost 8 hours in that salon. To add on top of the mess, my bill was higher than expected. The full foil service was $67. The cut was $25. Normal. The highlighting service only covered 3 bowls of lightener, which meant I was charged $11 extra for the additional bowls used on my hair. I was also charged an extra $5 for color - the low light. If I was aware of this extra charge in the first place, I would not have said yes. After looking back at the service menu, it does state there is an extra charge for color, yet not once did the stylist mention this to me. In the end, I paid a total of $108.

When I got home, the color of my hair was the same, and it was extremely greasy from the leave-in conditioner. Instructors never helped during the entire experience, even though the student clearly struggled with completing the service.

I called the next day, told them about my experience, and was told I would receive a call back from the Institute in 24-48 hours to reschedule for free or "resolve the situation". As of today, I have not heard back. All of this to say, I do not...

POC are NOT welcome here!! My partner (black) and I (white) came here to tour the campus as a prospective student. When we tried to check in at the desk there were three women there, two who were helping customers and one who appeared to be a manager or supervisor of some kind. Both of the receptionists were helping people when we walked in so we waited patiently in line. One of them finished up pretty shortly after we got there but this manager (I was told her name is Annie) started talking to the reception girl right away before we could be helped. We were standing only a couple of feet away from the desk as we had moved forward when the previous customer had finished. We could hear what they were talking about and it was absolutely not an important or urgent conversation but they dragged it on for the next 4-5 minutes until the second receptionist was done and able to help us. The entire time they were talking casually they refused to make eye contact and did not say a single word to us while we waited, though they kept sort of nervously glancing in our direction. They saw us standing there but still refused to acknowledge us at all. As soon as we moved over (literally immediately) to be helped by the other receptionist the manager ended the conversation she was having and said to the white women in line behind us that she was sorry for the wait. We were not acknowledged or spoken to by this woman who was supposed to be in charge. Extremely unprofessional and hugely frustrating that there are people in the world who still act like this towards POC. We left immediately and did not take the tour because that behavior is unacceptable and we absolutely will not tolerate that. I will also mention that we saw at least 30+ women (students/instructors I assume) in and around the salon area while we were there waiting and every single one was white, as were all of the customers we saw. POC are very clearly not included or welcome in that space and I urge you to take your business and education elsewhere. Very disappointed. I also went back to the desk by myself before we left to make sure I got the managers name (Annie) and both reception girls were willing to greet me when my partner was not next to me which further reinforces that only white women are welcome at Aveda. I called after we left to talk to someone about the experience we had and was transferred to a voicemail. I had to leave a message but have not heard back from anyone. I called again to speak to someone but again had to leave a message. When I received a call back that I was unable to answer, the voicemail left by Sandra Wagner was a bit cold and gave the impression that this woman did not really care about what type of experience I had. Aveda seems to be well respected in the beauty world, but they absolutely do not deserve that reputation. From the very moment we walked through the doors we felt uncomfortable and unwelcome. My partner was so excited to begin a career in the beauty industry only to be met with racism and disrespect. The beauty standard at Aveda is an exclusive club that only certain people are allowed into. True beauty is for every body of every race, and Aveda unfortunately does not share in that belief. Please do not in any way...

Let me start off by saying I do not what my review to be a reflection of my stylists work. This should merely a reflection of the training and assistance they are receiving on the floor. I scheduled a full foil and a haircut for 12:30pm I got there at 12:15 and we got started ahead of schedule. My stylist was very nice and seemed to be understanding of the result I was looking for. It was going well, she wasn’t the fastest foiler by any means but that is understandable as they are students and will get faster with experience. 1:30 rolled around and she was still fouling, 2:30 and 3:30 still foiling. My stylist stated that the school would like students to finish up with the clients around 4:00 as school is done at 4:30 and they need to be finished. Since she finished foiling around 3:30 she rushed me to the shampoo bowl (which could use some updating) and started washing my hair. Since I was getting highlights and wanted something similar to a platinum blonde she was also using a toner. She put the toner in and said she was going to let it sit for 7 minutes. I’ve gotten highlights my whole life and the toner has always been left in longer than 7 minutes. I was trusting if the process as I hadn’t seen anything yet so maybe my toner did only need 7 minutes to process. Well, she came back two minutes later and rinsed out my toner and didn’t even let it sit for the 7 minutes she said. Then we walked back to her chair and she stated it was 4:00 and she wouldn’t be able to do the haircut today and asked if I could come back. I am a new mom of a 10 week old and am going back to work in a couple days. I think it is very unprofessional and sad that they schedule things that these students don’t have enough time to complete. I don’t have the schedule or the flexibility to come back whenever I’d like because she was not able to finish my haircut. She also asked if I would be ok with a casual blow dry instead of a style. I said yes, as I felt bad that she was feeling rushed and I did not go there for a blow out (I can do that at home). It was the color I went for. I told her that was fine. She blow dried my hair for maybe 2 minutes and never even brushed thru it. I don’t think she wanted to spend more time cleaning her brush when she finished with me. After that my hair was a tangled mess and was still dripping wet on the ends. She proceeded to get an instructor to sign off/ approve of her work. I thought surely the instructor would have her dry it to see the quality of the color/ color pattern but no, the instructor said Great job! Thanks for coming in today. While my hair was tangled and dripping wet. When my stylist told her that she was unable to get to my haircut I thought maybe someone else could do it or something, they wouldn’t have people leave without finishing the service they scheduled… right? But they did. I paid for my service and left. In disbelief of what just happened I thought, I’ll go home and see my color. I wasn’t able to tell when I left due to the wet hair and unbrushed hair. I was shocked when I got home. And unfortunately a little upset how things ended because if I would’ve seen the finished product at the institute I would’ve brought it their attention. To...