Annastasia Salon — Attraction in Portland

I have never left reviews, but I want to share my experience this time. I really liked the salon, good location and clean premises. My hairdresser was Hayley. My request was a full bleaching, about 3-4 levels (I was about 5 1/2 to 6). What Hayley told me, for someone will seem both an advantage and a disadvantage. After conducting a strand test, she refused to do this procedure, since a year ago I used a home dye of a dark color on my length and when bleaching this length was one tone darker than the hair that grew out in a year. She said no to my suggestions to try double bleaching or acid wash to remove the remains of the dye. On the one hand, this is good, because she cared about my hair and did not want to ruin it, understanding all the responsibility. She suggested that I gradually cut my hair (let me remind you, my home coloring was a year ago with chest-length hair). Thus, it would take me about 3 years to get virgin hair of the same length. She cut off about 3 inches or less and offered to make another appointment in 6 months, booking me in February. So then we will cut my hair again and wait 6 months again or cut my hair to shoulder length and do the color I want. Just because she wants to color only virgin hair (?) (the only way out was to cut them off up to the ears, which is what she told me). We spent a lot of time with her explaining why my color was impossible and we can do a maximum of one tone lift, just to balance my roots and ends color. But when she did the haircut, she simply asked what kind of cut I wanted (straight cut) and took off my ends in 2 minutes. In the end, the haircut was not bad, but the hair lay unevenly l(now I understand that this will always happen with a straight cut, but I did not know and she didn’t explain). For those 2 minutes I paid $64! (If not less than 2 minutes). So I found several stylists who were willing to give me the lightening I wanted. Only when I searched for a hairdresser again I realized that I didn't want to give $300-400 to people who weren't confident in their work. If I had virgin hair, even my boyfriend could have done it without much unpredictability. I was ready to pay Hayley because I thought that's why colorists exist, who can predict the result and lighten more than a tone. I was ready to buy professional care to maintain damaged hair. In the end, I bought semi-professional products for coloring and care. I've already done the first bleaching and now I'm waiting a couple of weeks to do the second one and not damage my hair too much. I like the quality of my hair and I understand that Hayley could have come up with something. But I want to thank her for being honest with me and not wanting to take on such responsibility. And finally, I saved a good amount. If she can do only one tone lightening or virgin hair without damage and with full confidence, then I can handle it myself, because I have experience in dyeing my hair blonde myself. I just hoped that you get a license to work on more complex cases (although my hair is straight, non-porous, quite smooth and soft, in which no more than 5 inches were damaged). But for two snips with scissors it was too...

I really debated leaving this review, because I’ve gone to this location for years and have always had a 5⭐️ experience with Katherine, and have always voiced my happiness with this location. BUT, that changed this week.

I booked an appointment months ago, but Katherine had not returned from her maternity leave, so she recommended Monica. I was so excited to work with a new stylist, and get my hair cut and colored for my birthday. I only do my hair 1-2 times a year, so this is a treat for me. My appointment was set for Monday, and Monica contacted me the Friday evening with a form to fill out regarding my hair history and inspiration pictures. It’s a decently long survey, so I got to it when I could, which was Sunday morning. Fast forward to 8:30PM the night before my appointment, and I get a text from Monica saying whoever scheduled didn’t schedule enough time. She asked if I could come in on Tuesday instead. I took the day off of work for my appointment, and for my birthday, so I was not willing to just cancel and move my appointment. I asked her if there was anyone else available and let her know I was just upset because of how close to my appointment it was, and how far in advance I had booked. She called me, didn’t seem too apologetic, just kind of pushed blame on the people who scheduled (which I get it… ultimately it wasn’t her fault) I was just thrown off by the unprofessionalism of the last minute cancellation and what seemed like an attitude that I was inconveniencing her. She ended up booking me with someone else (whole other location and at 1PM instead of 9AM), said her manager would call me to follow up, and did follow up with a nice text.

My appointment was okay. No pricing up front, which is not typical for them. Once she finished the haircut and began foiling she said “Your budget said $250-$300, so I’ll try to get you as much as I can for that price” so I figured at that point that was the price I’d be paying. I’ll say that was on me for not asking up front. Overall, went pretty well. The color is not completely what I wanted, but it looks good.

As for the manager reaching out, she finally did on Tuesday afternoon. Really didn’t say much, apologized, said it was scheduling a fault and she would talk with them, and said “you can’t really gauge tone over text” when I brought up my initial conversation with Monica. I don’t really understand what the point of that follow up was, but I guess it’s appreciated.

Overall, probably won’t return. Which sucks, because...

I have only gone to Nathan in the past, and he is the best in every way. A talented hair stylist and professional and kind.

My schedule is suddenly extremely busy, and Nathan is popular, so I booked a haircut with Dante. Huge mistake!

Either she was in an very bad mood or disliked me on sight. As soon as I opened my mouth, there was trouble. I started out saying my haircut is good, but I wanted something to showcase my natural curl even more. I said I have noticed on my foreign programs (German and Italian) women have straight hair down halfway and then curls on the bottom and I want that. First she told me they can only get that sitting under heat lamps (????). I said the cut can help though. She responded "no, that's styling." I said when hair is one length and long it's harder to curl.. Then she expounded on how she was a curl expert and each person's hair is different (duh I know each person's hair is different, and two I am the expert on my own hair and three what does that have to do with what I said?).

I told her I did not agree that it's all styling and cut makes no difference in hair curl. I said "if it's cut right," it's easier to curl. She actually did air quotes around the words cut right saying "what does cut right mean?"

Then she sullenly slunk away to get the shoulder cape. I sat thinking I am not letting this angry, rude woman anywhere near my head with scissors. I told her, "I'm not comfortable, and I am leaving." She said okay like she was glad to see the back of me.

The receptionist took a message and of course there was no manager to on site to talk to. No one to help at all.

I carved out the time to get my haircut with great difficulty and sacrifice only to waste the entire effort and have part of my day ruined.

It was the worst hair salon experience I have ever had in my entire 70 years...