Cinta Aveda Institute — Local services in San Francisco

Don't go here, I wish I did not.

I walked in to make an appointment. I told the front desk that I wanted to work with a gamma stylist, the highest level of stylist in training. The person they supposedly were booking me with was a beta, second tier, but she is from a foreign country where she has her cosmotology license in, but that license is not recognized here in California.

When I arrived for my appointment today, I looked through the look books and chose several pics that showed how I wanted my naturally dark blonde hair with 6 months of grown out highlights to become natural looking highlighted and lowlighted hair. The stytlist myself and the "educator" all spoke IN DETAIL about this. The last thing the (first) EDUCATOR said to the stylist was NO CHUNKY HI LITES. Well he didn't supervise her AT ALL. While she was doing the color, she told me she was an engineer in the Ukraine, before she moved here, which struck me as odd being that I was told my stylist has a hair license NOT an engineering license in her home country.

Another (second) educator comes over to check in about the cut, there were some communication issues which we ironed out and in the end the cut came out pretty good.....She started blow drying my hair and oh gosh now I can see the color. I now had incredibly CHUNKY highlights, that were PLATINUM blonde in front and dark dark blonde on the sides.

Another (third) educator came over, as at this point I am in tears, and she agreed to waive the fees for today and I can make an another appointment to fix it. Why they couldn't fix it then and there, I am not sure. My schedule is tight and no I cant come back tomorrow. She is finishing up the blow dry and I am still visibly upset, so now the fourth educator comes over, and says 'don't worry, we will fix it I cannot refund you but we will fix it for free.' I said 'thats funny, I was already told I did not have to pay for my services today since I was so unhappy". Fourth educator says "maybe a school isn't the right place for you to come" to which I replied "Maybe the first educator, who is no longer on the floor, should have stayed and supervised my entire process".

The stylist finished the blow dry and to be honest, it wasn't even a good blow dry. My naturally wavy hair, was now straight like i asked, but pretty damn frizzy.

When I went downstairs to reschedule, it turns out the gammas are only taking appointments from 315 to 415pm I work in fitness which means I always have to be in work by 5pm, during the week and I work on Saturdays, so my only option was to go with a beta stylist. I passed. So yeah I did NOT pay with money but trust me I am paying with S----Y streaky chunky likes its 1999 highlights. And Ill have to pay to have this fixed by a pro.

The thing is I have gone to schools before, and there is usually ONE educator or master instructor, who actually stays with the stylist the entire time THAT SAME EDUCATOR checks in periodically. I understand that part of me getting services cheaply, is that they may not get it 100%, I am helping someone gain experience in their learning environment. But the skill-less-ness and the attitude and unprofessionalism here is solely from educators who have no supervisory skills and zero responsibility for the people that come in.

If you want chap hair servicesr, there has to be a better deal on lifebooker or groupon or go check out the Paul Mitchell school...

I honestly cannot express how disappointed I am with my experience at Cinta Aveda Institute. If you are thinking about attending this school, I strongly urge you to reconsider. My time there was nothing short of a nightmare.

1.Harassment by Instructor: One of the worst parts of my time at Cinta Aveda was being harassed by my instructor. This was something we had to complain about multiple times before any action was finally taken. It was completely unprofessional and left me feeling unsupported and uncomfortable.

2.Lack of Instruction: For the majority of my time there, I had no instructor. I had to teach myself everything out of a book. Despite this, I was still expected to pay the full tuition amount, which felt incredibly unfair. The whole point of attending a school is to get proper training, and this was nowhere near what I expected.

Subpar Materials: Another major issue was the lack of adequate materials. There was literally nothing for students to practice with, and the so-called "kits" they provided were filled with supplies that you could easily pick up at a dollar store. I couldn’t believe that we were being charged so much for a so-called "professional" education, yet the quality of materials was incredibly subpar.

Unreachable Administrative Staff: It was nearly impossible to get in contact with anyone in the administrative office. No one seemed to care or respond to inquiries, and it made everything even more frustrating. The lack of communication was appalling.

5.Unresolved Certificate Issue: I completed my hours of training back in August, and here we are months later, with no help from the school in receiving my certificate of training. No one from the school, including the staff and the owner, has taken any responsibility to resolve this issue. It's beyond frustrating. On top of this, I am unable to take my state board exam and get my license because of this unresolved matter. This has completely held up my career and left me in a very stressful and uncertain situation.

To top it all off, the owner, Cinta herself, has been unresponsive and indifferent to all of these problems. She clearly doesn’t care about her students or their well-being.

Please do yourself a favor and do not waste your time or money here. There are so many better options for cosmetology schools out there, and this one is definitely...

I want to support this business as a school that gives students an opportunity to practice and a cheaper service to those who need it or want it… however I regretted going and taking a risk. It’s obviously a risk… and for me it wasn’t worth it. I am a dyed strawberry blond with châtain (light brown) natural hair that is fine. I came here to become a copper redhead and thought I had nothing to worry about. I’ve learned that trusting your hair color to a student is simply not a great idea, even though a student consults an instructor before doing your hair. My roots were dyed deep burgundy red - just like the wine. Honestly, if hair color lifts up to 4 shades, why in the world did they decide to put a different shade on my roots still beats me. I obviously wasn’t happy with my results. The student took 2.5 hours to dye my mid length hair and she started with the roots so by the time my whole head of hair was dyed (I was asked to hold it for 30 minutes when done, too) you can guess what was happening to my roots. An instructor came to the rescue once the color was washed off. the first thing she says to me- well, you know this is a school and these are students, right? Oh Lordy. Yes, I’m aware of that, really not what you want to hear as a person with the hair on fire. Yes, im aware I’m a guinea pig who pays to be one but holy cow, that’s not what you say to someone. I asked her to fix it, she told me to come back for another appointment (I refused) then she told me she can’t make it lighter and she put more color in my hair. As I sat at the hair washing station with more color on my hair, another instructor came to the rescue. He put a color stripping agent on my roots. It lifted the color but as I came home I realised it was patchy. He did rescue the operation as much as he could and I’m thankful -but I realise I have to strip all of this patch work with burgundy roots still there and do another all over color to correct everything. I’ll wait for a couple of weeks to give my hair some rest. The experience at Aveda took 6 hours (I came for my appointment at 10 and left at 4 pm) and costed me $50. As the aftermath I spent another $80 on products to fix this hair experiment which is still to come. My best word of advice to you before you go for a new hair color to trust your hair to a student… think very carefully if you want to take...