Carbon Salon — Local services in Boston

returning to review a year after my last service at carbon, having gained a lot of perspective (and hoping things have since changed) — i got my roots bleached professionally for the first time at carbon. so i didn’t know any better than to assume that their practices / services were correct and focused on what was best for my hair and customer satisfaction. however i have since gotten my roots done at several other salons where the service was a lot faster and cheaper. my appointments at carbon regularly took over three hours, not even including a trim. i was told that this was the only way to do it and that it was my fault for waiting so long (a few months) between bleaching sessions. i was charged about $300-350 for each appointment. every other stylist i’ve gone to since then has done the same service for me in under 2 hrs for about $200. no guilting, no judgement. people will tell you that this is a good mid-to-high end salon for boston. i am so serious when i tell you that you are better off going to a random salon in allston, or just generally further out from downtown. you will get the exact same service with none of the inconvenience or social awkwardness of staring down the tip button after the service itself was way more than you were initially told it would be (allegedly because your roots are grown out, your hair is thick, etc — the kind of thing a hairstylist should be able to deal with and provide proper communication/warning, rather than upcharging you and making the guy at the front desk explain why you are suddenly spending $100 more than you thought you would be). once i even left the salon with wet hair in the middle of the winter because the stylist i was working with couldn’t get it done in under four hours. which i said was totally fine at the time, and tipped. now i understand that i was just totally oblivious about receiving less than acceptable service. i don’t intend to sound super mean or entitled. it was just really disappointing and uncomfortable at the time as a college student trying to do something fun and nice for themselves, only to be regularly stressed out and regretful about the way i apologized when the circumstances of the appointment were definitely not my fault. i write this all hoping that things have improved! i kind of doubt it given the general culture / vibe of the salon but like who knows....

This felt like a luxury supercut experience. They say they do walk ins but I must say this place always closes an hour early several times a week. I did a walk in and did a bang trim with Isabelle and god, do I regret it. Isabelle clearly did not want to be there and does not like her job. She had a lousy attitude, maybe because it was an hour before closing. I had shown her several references pictures and I told her I wanted a fuller wispy cut. I told her I wanted my bangs just below my eyebrows and it wasn’t what I got at all. Isabella twisted my bangs and started DRY cutting. I asked her if she was going to spray or wet my bangs at all and she said she was. She never did, there was no spray bottle near. I already felt my bangs right above my eyebrows and still dry. I immediately told her to stop and she said she wasn’t done. I told her it was short enough, my hair was short enough and it was so puffy. She just started passing her scissors through them to give them a wispy look and she failed. She made my bangs look CHOPPY !! I scheduled a hair mask treatment done too, I should’ve honestly ended my service the second she started dry cutting my hair. But I didn’t and went ahead with the hair mask. She applies the mask without doing any consultation of what kind of mask I wanted. Prior from the appointment , I had called and asked how many masks they had and they told me four different ones. She just lathered my hair with a mask without asking me if I wanted a hydration mask or if a color treatment. Nothing. The mask smelt like a strong cologne. She was brushing my hair and when I told her, it hurt, she stopped completely. She did not bother brushing the rest of my hair. I had to start detangling my hair with my fingers. The salon just happen to run out of caps so I just sat there for ten minutes with the mask on. She also didn’t want to rinse the mask off. The hair is long so my hair was just dripping. I had to ask her if she was going to rinse my hair out, other than that I don’t think she was going to. My hair felt so stiff. I had to go to target and get a deep conditioner mask after this, that’s how bad that mask was. My bangs aren’t what I wanted at all and currently I have side bangs because I don’t know what she did. The whole...

I want to preface this by saying Olivia is AMAZING!!!! She is such a good hairstylist and her haircuts are absolutely reasonably priced and she’s super talented. I really like the haircut she gave me.

That being said, I wish I could come back to this salon, but their scheduling system has caused way too many issues to the point where it’s just a nuisance to try to get an appointment here. I scheduled an appt over the phone for my haircut for a Saturday, I showed up on Saturday and they deleted my appt?? Or something? Because I wasn’t in the system. So I asked if I could still be seen that day at a different time and I appreciate that they were able to fit me in a couple hours later. Again, Olivia is great, so nice, helpful and fun to talk to, can’t complain at all about her.

Fast forward to the following Thursday, they text me saying I have an appt that day. What? So I ask them to cancel that bc I never scheduled it, and I figured I’d ask to get a correction for my bangs so they can get trimmed a little shorter within the 14 day period. They said yes, again scheduled an appt for the following Saturday over the phone, confirmed that since it’s within 14 days it would be free.

Saturday morning comes and I accidentally miss the correction appt, and they charge me $32 saying that I’m responsible for 50% of services per their cancellation policy. I called them to ask why I got charged so much for a free appt, and the first response I get is that “there’s no such thing as a haircut correction, just color corrections, but haircut corrections are just categorized as haircuts.” Eventually they fixed it and refunded me the cancellation charge but omg. So much of a nuisance just for one haircut!! I get if someone is new and needs to be trained but please train your new hires properly so they don’t do this to customers!! I had THREE separate issues with scheduling just for one...