WS Studios Hair Professionals — Local services in London

I’ve been contemplating writing this review for over a year now for a few different reasons.

The first time I went to this salon in September 2018, I had the best balayage by Alex.

I went back in October 2019 and it was the worst hair colour I have received to date.

First, I was called 2 hours prior to my appointment and asked to come in hours after I had booked it for which I wasn’t able to do because I had a meeting booked in for late afternoon. The man on the phone said that was fine and they would honour the booking I had made for the time I had made it for. I said that if it was a problem, I’d be happy for it to be rescheduled but I was assured that this would be fine.

I show up 10 minutes early and no one is in the salon except one man who had clearly just started putting foils into a client’s hair. The receptionist eventually returns and tells me that the appointment will in fact be an hour later than it was booked for but I had traveled 30 minutes to get there already so I made myself comfortable and patiently waited politely. The appointment did not actually start until over an hour later.

Paul was lovely and seemed passionate about his work and we instantly started chatting. Genuinely one of the nicest people! I wasn’t worried until I had asked where he had previously worked and he named a salon in my area that I wouldn’t even take a child to for their first haircut due to its terrible reputation and caliber. Even so, he seemed to know what he was doing so I let him finish putting the foils in and waited.

When I sat down in the sink chair to have them washed out was when I really got nervous because the receptionist who was removing the foils audibly gasped and ran over to get Paul- surely not a good sign. Paul came over and told him to leave them in a bit longer and then add toner.

Well add toner he did, multiple times. I was sat in the sink for about 2-3 hours total.

During this time, the man washing my hair realized it was my birthday and I asked him to not make a big deal about it or tell Paul (I’m not big into birthday attention and it had only come up in conversation as the man told me he was a Libra and we got into conversation about our birthdays). He disappeared and came back with strawberries and champagne which was a really thoughtful touch but by this point I was so anxious that I didn’t touch any of it and I was also doing a sober month at the time (I had told both of the men this on arrival).

At this point I had been at the salon for over 5 hours and had already rescheduled my work obligation, but had tickets that night to a musical for my birthday and needed to get home first- something I had told both Paul and the man taking care of me at the sink numerous times throughout the course of the day. I asked the man washing my hair how much longer I would be in the chair and he stated that they had just put a complimentary treatment in my hair and I would need to sit for another 30 minutes to an hour at which I said that wasn’t possible as it was past 5pm and I needed to leave as soon as possible to make the timings I had for my evening. He wouldn’t wash the treatment out for 15 minutes and at this point I was panicking.

They sat me back in the chair and had dimmed the lights in the salon at this point. I asked him to just rough dry my hair since I really needed to leave. They proceeded to blow it out and curl it.

It wasn’t balayage at all, but I didn’t realize this until I walked out into natural light. He had dyed my entire head a straw yellow colour and there was absolutely no brown anywhere anymore.

I called and emailed the salon the following day and asked for a refund so I could have it fixed elsewhere as I was really upset and just wanted to dye it back to my natural brown.

They didn’t reply to me so I went through treatwell and their reply to treatwell was that they gave me birthday presents and would prefer to fix it in house.

£1200 and 3 appts later at the top rated London salon and it is still not back to normal but nearly there. You really get what...

I had high hopes for this salon but unfortunately I paid £250 for hair colour that I am unhappy with... I have dark brown hair and had a cut and colour (balayage) service.

The colour I requested was caramel but they dyed it bright blonde. I wanted the look to be very subtle with a hint of colour. I even showed them some examples of colour work from the salon's Instagram account so they would have an exact idea about what I was looking for and could easily recreate (seeing as it was their work!) The photos I showed were just from a few weeks ago.

There was also an issue with communication in the salon as there was somewhat of a language barrier. My stylist was new to the country and was trying to up-sell Olaplex to me. She was unable to explain it properly but I googled it and asked her if the price was for '3 steps' the 3rd being some Olaplex treatment to take home... she said yes and I paid the extra £50 as it seemed okay if it included a take home product. But it turns out there was no 'take home' element, and looking back, I am not entirely convinced they actually used this product in my hair at all...

I was shocked when my hair came out bright blonde and I think the staff were too. It was already 8.30pm on a Friday night though so they blow dried and finished the hair but played it down and said 'It is very light, come back next week and we'll pop some toner on to darken it, it will only take 15 minutes'.

WARNING please read!!

Full head balayage and thermo scissors haircut with Nico.

I had really high expectations given the great reviews this hair salon and Nico himself had however my hair was left unnecessarily damaged.

The balayage application was good but the overall colour came out an ashy blonde, something I said I wanted to avoid. Another hairstylist kindly recommended an at home toner I could use to try to correct.

The real issue is that the thermo scissors Nico used must have been on too high a heat / not enough heat protection spray was applied because it caused severe heat damage and singed the ends of my hair. I noticed the damage immediately after and the manager kindly took a look and tried to cut out the strands which he said were beyond repair. He told me I could come back if I saw any more damage.

The next day I went back when I noticed that I damage all over, when I entered the salon Nico was on the reception desk. I showed him the singed ends and asked him to confirm if it was the thermo scissors, and if there was a way to repair the damage or trim my hair again. He was immediately defensive and came back at me with attitude, told me he didn’t have time to trim my hair and I should try a hair mask.

Fortunately the manager I saw the day before came over and intervened, he looked at my hair again and asked Nico if he applied enough heat protection spray, he rolled his eyes said yes and that he didn’t have time to deal with customers today.

Nico’s lack of accountability and rudeness really upset me, I was never once rude or accusing, I just wanted to see if there was a way to remedy the damage. When the manager asked to Nico book me in stood up and walked off again muttering he didn’t want to deal with customers.

The manager was really nice, he offered to give me a deep treatment mask to help smooth the damaged ends, whilst this helped a little the ends are so fried I’ll have to no choice but to cut them out.

Overall I was deeply disappointed with my whole experience, when you pay over £200 for a service you expect a level of professionalism. At the end of the day I paid a lot of money to have my hair unnecessarily damaged...