| Victory Over A Bad Perm |
Karen Marie Shelton
Date: 1998, Revised - 7/23/2004 |
| |
A True Story Of A Woman Who Took On Her
Hairstylist And Won
Introduction
The story that I am about to tell you, will give hope to the many people that go into a
hair salon requesting a specific service and leave with less than what they have paid for.
This great story of justice over a "bad perm" started back on May 29th when I
received an AskKaren question from Belinda Rodgers from Ireland who wrote:
Hi Karen,
I had a corkscrew or spiral perm put in my hair around a week ago. When I left the
salon, I was not particularly happy with the perm as it seemed on the limp side - indeed
one of the junior staff who was given the job of drying my hair offered to put it in
rollers!!!.
I've had perms in the past which have taken very well, and have lasted at least 6
months. Yesterday I washed my new hairdo, and the perm is now virtually non-existent, more
of a wave than a curl. I have complained to the hairdresser in question, and am due to go
back in tomorrow to see 'what they can do'.
This salon is one of the most expensive in Dublin, where I live - so it isn't a
case of cheap haircuts or services.
I need to be armed with some facts before I go back in. Can I have another perm
done so soon after a failed perm ? I am concerned about the condition my hair may be left
in, should they offer to do this.
Hoping for a quick reply,
Belinda Rogers
Karen's Commentary
I was horrified by Belinda's email but not surprised at all. I receive so much AskKaren
email from people who have had unhappy experiences with a hairstylist.
I wanted to help Belinda the best that I could and was very concerned about providing
her with the facts. I also knew that it would not be a good idea for her to get another
perm so soon.
So on May 30th, I wrote to Belinda the following response:
Hi Belinda,
I just received your email as soon as I got home...so I hope this is enough time
for a response.
First of all, I would personally ask the salon to give me my money back and I would
personally not be willing to let them do another perm on my hair within days of doing the
first perm.
There is, in my opinion, the real possibility of them "burning" your hair
because they will probably want to either apply even more solution to make sure the second
perm "takes" or they make leave the solution in longer. Either option is, again
in my opinion, dangerous.
If they don't want to give you your money back, ask them for a "credit"
for a new perm and try to wait awhile before you go back. So if they want to
"redo" the perm tomorrow, just ask them to give you a credit coupon and tell
them you want your hair to rest a bit and you will come back in a few weeks.
Any type of chemical application to the hair, perms, color, straighteners or a
combination can definitely harm the hair. I strongly recommend that no one ever do two
chemicals to their hair.
There is one expert in California who will do color and perm at the same time by
wrapping the hair in different colored foil and perming parts of the hair and highlighting
others. This prevents the hair from having more than one chemical applied. I think this
might work but I would want a guarantee that my hair would be protected from too much
chemical.
You may go through another perm and have no problems, I would expect you to have
either excessive dryness or possible burning or even serious breakage. Your hair is
fragile, even if it is in great condition.
Why not spend a few weeks "resting" before the next perm and be sure to
do at least one very deep condition per week on your hair to get it ready for the next
re-perm?
It makes me sad to tell you that some of the most expensive salons in the United
States have some of the worst and least experienced stylists on staff. Unfortunately, a
"good" salon will not protect you from what you have experienced. I could tell
you all kinds of stories from many of my AskKaren emails. One woman spent $300 for a
highlight and her hair turned bright orange instead of blonde. The salon in question is
famous and well thought of.
The only real protection you have in having your hair "done" is to go in
armed with some information (which you are doing) and by sticking up for yourself. Please
don't let them try to "bully" you into doing another perm if your are not
comfortable. Tell them to give you a credit that you can use for another perm later or for
another hair visit.
Many salons will get quite paranoid if they "screw" up hair and they
don't want you to tell anyone. So they will pressure the unhappy customer to come back and
"redo" the process. Unfortunately, a redo is not always the best solution for
your hair.
I would be giving you the same advice if you had a "bad color" job.
Chemicals can really "stress" hair and are OK within reason and under good
circumstances.
The Hair Boutique Talk Board currently has several "home remedies" listed
that are very nourishing for the hair (read the recipe from Jen) and I would recommend
giving your hair some serious conditioning and then go back and try again.
If you are really unhappy, demand your full money back and find another salon.
One thing seems to be true. Stylists may be very talented at cutting hair but may
not be as talented with color or perms. Some stylists are great with color and perms, but
not so great at cuts. The best solution is to try and find a specialist.
Sometimes that is just impossible. But it is worth a shot.
Thanks for writing and good luck. Let me know how it goes.
Regards,
Karen
Belinda immediately responded with the following email on 5/30/98:
Hi Karen,
Thanks so much for your quick and detailed response. You have confirmed what I had
suspected, namely the risk of fried hair!
I am due over in Los Angeles in about 4 weeks time for a music conference, and also
have meetings with music industry types, which is why I went off to get my hair 'done' in
the first place. I thought I'd be clever and give it time to 'sink in' before I went - At
least the cut is quite good if nothing else. I really don't think I'll risk another perm -
the possible consequences are too horrible to contemplate.
I have a phobia about hairdressers anyway - They never listen to what you ask
for...they always want to cut it in a big way...and it's always your hairs fault when it
doesn't come out right ! - so I only go about every 3 years when I pluck up enough courage
to accept the outcome (my mum trims it meanwhile).
I'm not a nervous hair person having said that - but I just think a lot of these
people are rather dim with a bad sense of style - (have you noticed most hairdressers hair
isn't great!!). My guess is the top stylists around the world probably are intelligent,
and have a sense of style which is what puts them a cut above the rest !.
Ah well, at least my hair will survive, with a lot of scrunching and hair wax,
it'll be o.k.
Best wishes - I'll send you a short note and let you know what wriggling the
hairdressers do.
Belinda
P.S. I already phoned them, and the receptionist told me 'well, we use very weak
lotions you know, and perms always relax a fair bit within the first 3 weeks' !!!!!.
Karen's Commentary
After Belinda went into to talk to the hair salon about her unhappiness with the perm
she immediately emailed me the results. Belinda also sent me a photo of what her hair was
supposed to look like and what it turned out to be. The difference in what she had asked
for and what she received was shocking as you can see for yourself.
Model's Perm and Belinda's Perm
Belinda gave me the details of her visit to the salon in her very next email:
Hi Karen,
Yes, I've been in, had no joy and come out again ! raging !. I was passed from the
original stylist, to a senior stylist, and finally the owner himself Mr. David Marshall (a
rather overweight fifty something living off past glories I suspect).
The original stylist was o.k. and said that she thought the lotion may have been
too weak, the senior stylist wanted to wash my hair and put sticky substances in to see if
it curled (I refused, as I know that normally, if you spray these types of perms with
water and scrunch, the hair should curl, which it wasn't doing).
I told her I wasn't prepared to let her attempt to force a curl into it when it was
quite apparent there was only a wave. As usual, they were trying to make me feel like an
idiot. Mr. Marshall then came to see my hair and whilst teasing it said rather
condescendingly that he couldn't see a problem.
I told him that there was no curl only a wave. He disputed this, and so I raised my
voice and said that there was no curl but a wave and I wanted my money back. He then
claimed that he was 'not prepared to be abused like this, and I could leave the salon'. I
replied that I was not prepared to be bullied into accepting a wave was a curl and I would
complain to the appropriate authorities.
So now I guess I'll be writing to the newspapers etc. I have tried to find out if
there is any authority I can complain to and can only find the Irish Hairdressers
Federation.
I suspect they just help hairdressers along. I'm going to get a picture taken of my
hair in its current state as proof. I have also spoken to a hairdressing friend of mine
who used to be a top stylist in Dublin (now retired to look after her children). She
agrees that the perm I've had in no way constitutes a spiral perm, so at least I have an
independent professional view on it. The salon owner really has annoyed me, as he offered
no recompense whatsoever, he's obviously relying on the fact that most women walk away
meekly putting the experience down as just one of those things.
If you have any suggestions (I realize the U.S. is different), I will gratefully
accept them.
Once again, Thanks for your help
Belinda
On June 1, 1998 Karen Shelton wrote:
Hi Belinda,
I have been having lots of email problems for the past 3 days and lost this
response from you. I have been frantically searching for it because I did not want you to
think I had neglected to respond to your email.
I am so sorry you had such a difficult time and Mr. David Marshall sounds awful.
Have you ever noticed how many people can not just graciously accept responsibility
for a mistake and say they are sincerely sorry and then try to make amends? Instead they
try to push the blame off on the customer and it just makes the entire situation so much
worse.
I am so proud of you for standing up for yourself and not allowing them to bully
you into accepting a wave when you paid for a curl.
In the US you would have some options. You could get a lawyer to sue which would be
costly and time consuming. However, the very presence of a letter from an attorney
informing the salon that you wanted your money back or else, would probably illicit an
immediate return of your money.
Allure Magazine has a monthly column - No Problem or:
No Problem
Allure Magazine
360 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10017.
If you send them a complete description of the problem, when it happened and your
name and phone number, they investigate your hair service problem or beauty service
problem claim and they confront the shop. They then print what the shop did to resolve the
problem.
Talk about major consumer pressures. Allure really knows how to do this because the
shop knows that to have their name published in Allure Magazine with an unsatisfactory
resolution would be the death to a shop. I don't know if writing to Allure would help
you...but what the heck...it can not hurt.
Also, feel free to post your experience with Mr. David Marshall on Hair Talk. Shops
HATE publicity. They want you to just go away and not make any waves. What is the worst
thing that can happen is for someone to tell everyone, the newspapers, the radios, the
Internet, all their friends.
That applies a lot of pressure, plus it saves some other poor unsuspecting person
from the same horrible fate. In the US you can also write to the Attorney General of the
state they are in, you can send email to the newspapers, you can also call the licensing
board for the state that the beauty shop operates in, you can file a report with the
Better Business Bureau. I am glad you are taking photos. That will help your case.
Please let me know what else I can do to help. I will investigate further.
My sincere apologies for the delay in responding. I go crazy when my email acts up
because I have so many contacts I need to keep open through email and when it is down I
worry they will all think I just dropped their responses. I will let you know what else I
find out about.
Please keep in touch.
Karen
Karen's Commentary
The last I heard from Belinda was at the beginning of June. I knew that she traveled
quite a bit and I also knew that she had plans to spend some time in California. I
wondered about her often and hoped that things had turned out well for her.
I always request that the AskKaren visitors that I correspond with let me know the
outcome of their experiences. So I was delighted to receive an email from Belinda on
September 7th with victorious news about her "bad perm"
Belinda wrote:
Hi Karen,
It's been a long time since I was in contact with you - but the wheels of law turn
very slowly - I was very fortunate in that I managed to get a hairdressing friend of mine
to vouch that my hair was not permed in the style I had asked the rogue hairdresser for,
and I had a letter drawn up to that effect, which she signed.
I submitted this with an application to the Small Claims Court enclosing a picture
of my hair with a picture of a corkscrew as shown on one of the net sites for comparison.
I itemized my experience at the hairdressers and I also wrote to our main local
newspaper - this got printed.
The hairdresser did not reply to the Small Claims Court when they asked him to
respond to the allegations, so by default I have won - and he is ordered to pay the full
amount of my claim (110 pounds which was the cost of my visit to them).
The only problem is how they are going to get the money out of him, if he doesn't
cough up he will be asked to attend a crown court hearing and so on.... we will wait and
see, but at least I have the satisfaction of knowing he did not get away with it. I guess
the bottom line is, if your in the right - persevere. Thanks again for your interest and
assistance.
Regards,
Belinda Rogers
Model's Perm and Belinda's Perm
|
|
On September 8, 1998 Karen Shelton wrote:
Oh Belinda,
How absolutely wonderful! I am so proud of you. Thank you for the photos too. I am
so glad your friend stood up for you.
OK now here is a question. Would you be willing to let me share your experiences
with Hair Boutique? It is totally up to you and I don't want you to feel any need to do so
unless you would like to.
I think it would be great inspiration for other women who have been butchered, lied
to and not given the proper hair treatments that they paid good money for at hair salons
all over the world.
If you don't want me to post this for any reason, I will totally understand. If you
want to post it but change any names because of legal reasons, I would be glad to do that
as well.
At any rate. Thank you for sharing this with me. You are so wonderful to remember
me with this email. I wondered often how you were doing.
Congratulations. What a great accomplishment. Hang in there and make them give you
back every single cent. :-)
Best wishes,
Karen
I was very happy when I received Belinda's permission to post the entire saga of her
bad perm. It made me feel so encouraged that she fought her case against her bad perm and
won.
This should give encouragement to everyone that goes to a hair salon and does not get
the service they paid for or asked for.
I am very proud of Belinda. Her story inspired me and I am sure it will help many
people realize they have options when they are treated badly in hair salons.
On September 9, 1998 Belinda Wrote:
Dear Karen,
No problem ! Go ahead and display away.... the only thing I would say is... if
you're going to just use a direct copy of my mail - check the spelling!
I often type these things out in a hurry and don't put the spell check on, (I have
a 2.5 year old who causes major havoc in all departments when I'm not looking, so my brain
is on two jobs at once!).
If you need any other info let me know.. I look forward to seeing the article. By
the way, in the item that got printed in the paper, I basically complained about the fact
that there were no independent bodies in Ireland that someone with a hair complaint could
go to for a professional opinion - The Irish Hairdresser federation only looks after
hairdressers, and as I said before, I approached around 10 hairdressers in my area and
none of them would officially assess my hairdo (it's like some unwritten law, where they
are terrified of commenting on someone else's work...although they're quick enough to
comment when your going in to get a new hairdo !)
I'm sure this must be a problem everywhere, so I was lucky I had at least one
professional hairdresser as a friend, though I would have been happier with two separate
opinions...still it worked out in the end..And it only cost me 6.00 to use the small
claims procedure !.
Kind Regards
Belinda
Thank you Belinda for sharing your trials and tribulations with all of us.
It is always great to publish a happy ending.
Karen |