Santo Salon & Spa — Local services in Pepper Pike

On 3/26/24 I sent the below email to Santo. Exactly a month later I still have not received a response. You decide if you want to trust them with your hair.

Hi Santo Salon,

It’s unfortunate that I have to send this email as the service from your salon is normally great and I’ve been a loyal customer for multiple years since moving to Moreland Hills a few years ago. But, I had the complete opposite experience in December and again in February.

I came in to have balayage done to my, at the time, completely uncolored, natural hair. At the time my hair was to my shoulders. Mya did the balayage and left the lightener on far too long (did not notice her using any timers) which left my hair completely and utterly fried. It was completely white and she did her best to remedy it back to a somewhat normal color using toner. She must’ve known something was off because she said to me multiple times that she’s never had anyone’s hair do that. I have had balayage done 4 times in my life prior and never had any of these issues.

Before this hair treatment, my hair was thick, full and healthy. After, it was left fried, damaged and straw-like.

I did not realize the damage that was done until I washed my hair for the first time. I then proceeded to spend 300+ on the best hair products to “repair” my hair I could find and am still doing Olaplex perfector treatments twice a week. The natural curl of my hair is gone from the damage and is now replaced with fried, wirey, stiff hair. Except for the underneath hair which was not treated and so is still curly. As someone who used heat on their hair only a few times a year, I now have to use heat every single wash to make my hair presentable for my work as I am client facing in financial services.

I then returned for a haircut on February 22 in hopes that getting the ends cut off would help with the crazy damage. At the time my hair was to my shoulders, I asked for an inch/ inch and half to be taken off in length. So that straightened, my hair would be to my chin. Mya did as I requested then washed and dried my hair with a blow dryer. She then evened out my hair, then proceeded to use thinning sheers and cut tons of my hair off. So the lower half around my head was missing tons of hair and the back. I was shocked as I watched her do it. I’m assuming she was doing it to cut off most of the extremely damaged hair. But I certainly never asked her to do that. She was running behind so another girl was going to curl my hair for me, but after sitting through the butchering that was now my hair, I decided to just leave as is.

I am sad about my hair everyday now. I am embarrassed by it. I am extremely unhappy with this entire experience. My hair is absolutely ruined. Santo is supposed to be the best, a luxury hair salon, which is why my husband and I trusted Mya (and previously Kenisha) with my hair, my husbands hair, and my daughters hair.

It will take years for my hair to grow out, for the damage to be gone, for the hair to grow back in that Mya butchered off and I am devastated.

Below I included pictures. The first is my hair air dried after the balayage. The second is the day she cut it. The third is for comparison. My natural hair in November prior to Mya cutting and doing balayage.

Before I leave an honest review on google and yelp, I am reaching out to get some sort of explanation and some sort of remedy/ refund.

Thanks,

Rachel Jose

Sent...

Do NOT book with Emma for any body polishes, body scrubs, or facials. She is not sanitary. I had a body polish done by Emma in which she NEVER washed her hands with soap and water before starting my service upon walking in the room and on top of it SHE NEVER used gloves the entire time while doing my body polish. WHO DOES THAT? I was completely disgusted that she would think it's ok to walk into a room from being on your germy cellphone to rubbing your nasty hands all over my body which could have given me an infection. I will never return to Santos again which is sad because I've been a long term client for years. She also had my room super cold knowing I was going to be cold after coming out of the sauna going from 101 degrees to 60 in the room. Seeing how nasty she was I wouldn't even put it past her that she didn't disinfect or clean the sauna prior to me getting in to kill germs. Smh. Emma needs to be retrained on infectious disease prevention 101 and realize she can get the company in serious legal issues with her actions. That was my first time going to Emma because my regular Esthetician at Santos was off for that day but I've heard other clients complain about her using her bare hands for facials as well which is disgusting. Emma made my spa experience feel cheap and dirty rather than clean and luxurious. You should never treat a client that way or handle their skin irresponsibly....

I returned to Santo as a former client. I got a body scrub which was amazing and I got a massage. Their menu of services specifically says Swedish massage techniques which is what I needed. What I got was deep tissue. In fact, the massage person was an esthetician (not a licensed massage therapist) and she literally did ONE technique on me the entire time. I had to repeatedly ask her to let up pressure. On my back, she worked in the middle of my back and every place where she was digging around was hurting for a couple of days afterwards. I am a licensed massage therapist and a massage trainer, and I called and tried speaking to the person over the spa. She had no interest in my complaint. What she did not know is I am a local guide and I have an obligation to let folks know when services can be improved. If you are going to utilize estheticians to do massage, then they need to learn more than one technique and they are NOT to do deep tissue per the cosmetology board rules! Her doing deep tissue which could get her into trouble. So, it would be in your best interest to correct the situation before someone comes in who will actually list that massage person's name. I will not because I am hoping that this is seen and the...