Aveda Institute Des Moines — Attraction in West Des Moines

I came in to get a haircut.. the hair stylist was nice. I explained to her what I wanted which was shoulder length, hair and an undercut. The length of itself is okay. She cut it a little long and I asked her to cut it shorter and she did. I have no complaints about the cut. It looks kind of like a bob and it's cute.

My issue is with the undercut. One thing I want to mention is that she never handed me a mirror or asked me to look at the back. This is my fault because I should have asked, but when the instructor came over and said that it looked great. I took her word for it and thought everything was good to go.

I didn't even have time to look at it until last night. When a friend saw my hair and told me that my undercut looked " ratty." After looking in the mirror I saw all these little hairs sticking out around the undercut. The picture below doesn't even really show how bad it was. That's one corner. The other corner had hairs all down my neck. It was not lined up at all. The undercut itself was done but left very messy. Also, the left side was much closer to my ear than the right side so the undercut itself was uneven.

I got it lined up & evened out this morning thanks to a friend. But I shouldn't have had to pay someone to fix a mistake that was checked by an instructor.

Again, this is my fault for not asking for a mirror, but this is the first time I've never been offered to even look at my haircut.

Let me make it clear. I do not blame the hair stylist. She is still learning. I blame the instructor who said it looked great. So A. The instructor does not know how an undercut should look or B. She assumed I had already seen it and liked it?

Maybe because I'm older. They thought that I wouldn't care?

My complaint about the stylist is only two things... As stated above, she didn't ask if I wanted a mirror which every single person who has cut my hair has just handed me a mirror to look and when I left my entire neck was covered in hair. She did blow dry some of the hair off but she didn't offer a wet towel to wipe it off which others have done previously or even mentioned that I was covered in hair.

I had to go somewhere straight after the appointment and was covered in hair the entire time until I got home and jumped in the shower. I kept wiping my hand across the back of my neck and little hair was coming off at the event the entire time.

I come here often to get my haircut and I will probably be going somewhere else...

I have been going to Aveda for 6 years and I used to get great results. The last year and a half have been terrible. On one instance a girl completely messed up layers and just kept cutting my hair shorter and shorter to try to fix it. I had a chunk of hair just completely missing in the back. On one occasion I asked for light neutral blonde and they did not listen and toned me Carmel blonde and it took months for my hair to lighten again. I should have learned my lesson at that point and not gone back. My experience yesterday takes the cake and I will never be going back. I also want to preface that the two girls that worked on me are graduating within the next couple weeks. The day before leaving on an extended international trip, I go in for full highlights wanting to be brighter for summer. 6.5 hours later I leave with wet hair and 30 minutes late to my nail appt. One would think that if they had a 9:30 am hair appt they could make a 4 pm nail appt no problem. Wrong. When I did finally get around to drying and styling it my hair was Carmel brown. BROWN. How did I sit in a chair for 6.5 hours and come out with brown hair? My friends that stoped over that night all commented “Oh you went darker?!” They took forever to foil my hair and then left me alone for an extended period of time with one section on top of my head not foiled. When they finally got around to foiling that last section it was too late; there was not enough time for it to fully process. I had voiced concerns along the way telling them the top of my head usually takes a long time to lift. Told them I would rather leave the salon straight from the shampoo bowl rather than them pull the foils too early. What did they do? Pull the foils too early; top of my head not fully processed and in order to make the end result look decent they resorted to toning my whole head darker without consulting with me. DO NOT GO HERE UNLESS YOU DONT VALUE YOUR TIME AND DONT CARE WHAT YOUR HAIR LOOKS LIKE! Now I am going to go on a trip, that I have been waiting to go on for a year, hating my hair and hating all the pictures of me from the trip. Please save yourself the aggravation and just avoid this salon. It’s just not...

I went in for a haircut for the first time in over 3 years and Taylor S. made me feel at ease, comfortable and relaxed. She listened to what I wanted and executed it perfectly! I left feeling like a new woman! I thoroughly enjoyed the mini facial add on and as always, the essential oils are lovely!! However, during the service, an instructor named Sarah Anne (I believe that’s how you spell it) came over and clearly had visible tension with the student and was not communicating professionally to the student in front of me. During the first touch base with the student before going to the bowl, she also held that same tone to me when speaking about the reference photo and she even snapped at me saying to keep my head straight. I didn’t realize my head was angled and thought she was pulling my hair taught to see the long layers I had, so I may have moved slightly. She continued to interrupt the student during the touch base and at one point just said “No, No, No”. I also interrupted the instructor to explain briefly what I wanted in my words and she proceeded to assume I wasn't aware of certain lengths when blowing the haircut out after I explained myself, at that point I stopped engaging and said thank you. When other instructors came by for the 2nd touch base and 3rd touch base, it seemed that they were more focused on listening to the students process and finding any teachable moments to work off of. The whole interaction with the 1st instructor left me feeling uncomfortable. The salon & Taylor were amazing otherwise and I would...