TONI&GUY Hair Salon

First, I will start by saying that I have been a loyal customer of Toni n Guy for years. I moved out of state, so it had been awhile since I last got my hair done at the salon. I was excited to go back for some highlights and lowlights, as I had nothing but good experiences previously. Also, I felt reassured when I went in knowing that everyone has to go through the same training in order to work at Toni n Guy, so I didn't worry too much about who did my hair. And after all, I hadn't been to the salon in over a year so I didn't know who was still on staff.

I had a four o'clock appointment which started right on time. I have a lot of hair so it isnt unusual for me to sit in a salon chair for up to 3 hours for a highlight and cut. Well, three hours later, she had JUST finished applying the color. 45 minutes later, after being shampooed, I was brought to a mirror for the first time. To my horror, my hair had gone from blonde to the most disgusting gray-red-black mixture I had ever seen. Everyone there assured me that it would look better once it had been cut and dried; however that only made the color worse.

Devastated, I asked for the color to be fixed, and the colorist said that she would the next morning. She assure me that this time it would only take 1 1/2 hours, tops. So I arrived at 9:00 sharp the next morning. By 11:30 I could not believe that she was just finishing applying highlights. I finally asked to speak to a manager because I was so upset. She confirmed that the color was processed and they had someone come wash me out. Upset, I was not rude at all, but simply asked if my hair still looked bad. She must have taken offense to this because she pulled the foils as hard as she could out of my hair. I told her it hurt, but she proceeded anyway. While washing my hair, she sprayed me in the face so many times that my makeup began to run and I had to ask for a towel to cover my face. After that, she took me to a chair, without a towel on my sopping wet hair which soaked my shirt. She said that since I was pressed for time I wouldn't get a full blow-out. She put no product in my hair and began to dry my hair with a paddle brush.

It was then that I noticed CHUNKS of my hair FALLING OUT. I asked her if I could see the hair that was falling out of my head. She said it was normal. I took a minute to calm down out of fear I would yell at her for being so incredibly rude to me, when I was the one with an already devastating experience. She asked me what I thought of my hair, to which I replied "I think that my hair is falling out". Her attitude got exponentially worse and she replied, "well, you still have plenty of hair left". She asked me if my hair was dry enough, which it was not. I stood up, tired of being treated so badly, and took off my smock.

Nobody at the salon could have known this, but 6 years ago I was diagnosed with a brain tumor and thus lost a lot of hair, endured a lengthy surgery, and have a large scar on the side of my head that cannot hardly be seen now that my hair has grown back...which has taken the full six years to do. What the woman who pulled at my hair did was pull at that scar, which I asked her to stop doing politely but she did not listen. What she did when she told me that I had plenty of hair left, after I could clearly see my hair falling out was resurrect the traumatic and life threatening experience I had already gone through 6 years before. And What Toni n Guy did by allowing such an inexperienced colorist operate, was set this whole experience in motion.

While I have been assured I can get a conditioning treatment and trim for the ends of the hair that has broken off, I cannot get the hair back that has fallen out. I will have to wait another 5-6 years for that to grow. And nothing could repair the exhausting, offensive, and abusive experience I had at Toni n Guy, at North Point in Alpharetta.