Horror Salon Experience!!

Royalq

Well-Known Member
So I got tired of doing my natural hair. I wanted a break and I wanted someone else to do it. So I did a little serach and came across Karline's Salon in west palm beach. they say the can do natural hair. Their facebook has over 40 positive reviews but their google reviews are terrible. I didnt know which to believe but since the Facebook had more I went ahead and booked an appointment. My mistake. This is what I worte on their reviews-

If I could give negative stars I would. Im natural with 16-18 inches of hair, 4b-4c, fine strands, high density, high porosity. I went it for a blow out today and left literally in tears of frustration. This salon does NOT know how to do natural hair. This is a relaxed hair salon. Everyone in there customers included had relaxed pixie cuts, except for the color stylist. Maybe the owner does natural hair but the other girls dont even know the basics. I went in for a blow out, my hair was previously cornrowed so it had some knots in it. I walk in everything is fine and they send me to the bowl and from the start it was a nightmare. I told the girl my hair was braided and was tangled.The girl started to try to detangle my DRY natural hair from the root down. Root down, yes.Even people with healthy relaxed hair know to detangle from the ends up. But she was trying to go from the roots down and of course the hair caught and tangled even worse. Then she began ripping through it. I was in so much pain. She didnt even detangle properly, because of her improper method the hair just knotted up even more and when she saw that she just moved on the the next section. she ripped through all of my hair dry, not a detangler cream or conditioner in site. Then she shampoos my hair all together (no sections, which causes more trouble in already tangled hair). She shampooed my hair 3 times for some reason. Then she get conditioner and a color brush and tries to split my hair and put the conditioner on my roots. My hair doesnt even like being parted normally and it sure as hell is not going to part when it tangled, wet, and fragile. Seeing that my hair wont part she began ripping through my hair again. She tried to part it and when it wouldnt split she would just hold both ends and pull. My hair sounded like velcro from the sound of hair ripping. My hair was breaking and falling on my chest and on the floor. By this point all the pulling gave me a major headache.

She the again did a half asses detangle from roots to tip yanking and pulling again. I go under the dryer and quickly popped 2 extra strength Tylenols I had in my purse because my scalp felt like it was bleeding. I thought "okay the worse part is oer, i just need this blow out then im out the door". WRONG. She comes back to rinse out the conditioner. Get this, she rinses out the conditioner then when my hair is completely naked, wet,and stretchy she tries to detangle a 3rd time from root to tip. Each time she detangles she does it wrong and has a hard time so she gives up mid section. then she sticks me under the dryer for my hair to dry before the blow out. I get in the chair (now my hair is completely dry) and she tries to detangle my hair a 4th time. She's ripping and yanking through my hair. She starts from the root, puts the comb in, then cleverly holds the base of my hair and pulls through. Holding the base of my hair makes me not really feel what she is doing but i sure heard it. Then she pulls out a metal pin round brush to blow dry. Again, anyone with sense knows that you are supposed to use the tension method or a paddle brush to blow dry hair. She tried to blow out my roots but my texture and tangles did not allow the brush to go. She decides to try and yank the brush through and cause me a lot of pain. She tried to detangle a 5th time, this time with the metal round brush and when that didnt work as usually she left the hair alone and tried to move on to another section. At this point Im on the verge of tears because I feel abused. She untwisted another section of hair and began aggressively pulling it, I could tell she was frustrated and didnt even give a damn if she was hurting me. I told her to stop and I said I was done.

I got up and collected my things taking deep breathes because i hate crying in public. The owner was all “what’s wrong?”, I could barely speak and I said I just wanted to leave. The owner offered to finish my hair and I said no. Im thinking, you sat there and gave me to a girl who doesnt know how to do natural hair, you saw here raking through my hair and you didnt stop her and now IM supoosed to let YOU finish me???? What makes you any different?? This is a girl that you hired, clearly you think she is qualified so now Im judging your standards. I just walked away to the fron desk. I really shouldnt have paid for a damn thing but I was so upset I just didnt want anymore problems. The front desk woman (some lady with white hair) ask me what was wrong and shhe was sorry I was unsatisfied. I told her that girl was extremely rough with my hair. She had the nerve to ask me if I was tender-headed. As if the girl wasnt being rough, but my scalp was just sensitive. I was so appalled. They made me pay $45 dollars for a wash and treat and I darted out the door and cried in my car in the parking lot. I called my sister -in-law and told her I think I need to cut my hair off because I KNOW my hair is damaged and shredded beyond repair. I was even thinking of relaxing it. My SIL talked me off the ledge and said she will come over to help me assess the damage the next day. She told me not to look at it because I was too upset and would do something I’ll regret. The next day she came over and we looked at my hair. My goodness. My hair was so broken. Just touching my hair there were clumps of curls coming out. Some of the twists we couldnt even unravel, I had to cut them open. There were chains of ripped hair all linked together. It took us 6 hours to detangle my hair. I have uploaded the pictures of my detangle session and you can see the ripped out hair simply dangling. And there is a twists that couldnt be unraveled because the ripped hair was all tangled up. Im so sad. And the one section that she did blow out reverted within hours so Im so glad I didnt allow my self to suffer more for a style that wasnt going to last anyways. DON’T advertise as a salon that does natural hair if your staff doesnt even know the basics of handling natural hair. NATURALS STAY FAR FAR FAR AWAY FROM THIS HELL HOLE. Unless you have short taper cut relaxed hair, dont come here. Oh and also the owner told me you cant trim hair without blowing it out first which is a crock of lies.
Chain of broken hairs
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Twist that has ripped hair locking it together
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Chain of broken hairs

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Web of knots, tangles, and ripped out hair.
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Long chain of ripped out hair hanging on to each other
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This is all the broken/ shredded out hair I lost:cry3:
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Like I stated in the random thoughts thread, Soultanicals Knot Sauce was the real MVP. If I hadnt ran out and bought that before detangling I think I would have shaved my head. My hair is currently in twists and idk what to do with it. I really dont have the energy to do it and im scared to let anyone else handle it.
 

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@Royalq

I recently experienced a terrible detangling session - which was by my own hand.

I hope you and your hair recover soon. I don't understand why she didn't refer you on to someone more 'skilled.'

I'm honestly surprised you stayed as long as you did?

Once you discovered she didn't know what she was doing, you should have excused yourself from her chair and left.

I hope you didn't pay them anything?

I think you should have definitely said something to the owner about your total dissatisfaction with the service you received and how your hair was handled.

However, I'm glad your SIL was able to help you and calm your nerves.

Please visit the "Moisture Drenched Pre-Poo" Thread, it really helped me with detangling, removing knots, tangles, locin' twisting etc.....

Hopefully, you will recover soon. I am currently babying my hair back to health as we speak from my detangling mishap.
 
I am so sorry girlie.. That is awful. You got me teary eyed over here. Shame on them.

Take a day to gather your thoughts, don't do anything too drastic. Maybe consider a super moisturizing deep conditioner and steaming your hair and just put your hair in twists (or some other low manipulation style).

Ugh. This upsets me. This is why I never let anyone tough my hair (barely even my own mother).
 
I'm sorry this happened OP. I've been there. I've had stylists:

  • Burn a chunk of hair out with a hot comb and not tell me.
  • Use hair pins with no protective balls on the end for an updo that rubbed my scalp raw.
  • Trim without my permission.
  • Heat damage my hair straight.
  • Rip through my natural hair with a fine tooth comb.
  • And my aunt blow dried my natural 4b hair unstretched, THEN proceed to comb it out dry and shunken.
I say all this to let you know that you are not alone and you will recover. We ladies spend hundreds to thousands of dollars maintaining our hair. Not to mention all the hours of work, blood, sweat, and tears we put in to take care of our hair. I've worked way too hard and cried tears trying to get my hair right.

This is not directed to OP because it's not your fault but ladies if something doesn't feel right, stop what's happening. We are the ones who have something to lose. We have to retrain ourselves to not worry about being rude or looking crazy. All these setbacks have taught me to be bold. We have to get up and walk out with wet hair if need be. Forget what they will think about you. Forget them!

I have one stylist I trust. She is expensive but I pay because it's not worth getting f'd over looking for someone new. OP if you ever visit NC I can refer you to her.
 
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Thanks for all the love ladies:cry3:. My sister in law found another place that seems to be associated with devacurl. She asked if we can just come in and wath a stylist do a womans hair that is similar in texture to mines. So we are going Wednesday afternoon. We are just watching with no commitment.
But yeah, i didnt want to be confrontational but it just got to a point where she completely didnt give a F whether she was hurting me or not.
 
I'm sorry this happened OP. I've been there. I've had stylists:

  • Burn a chunk of hair out with a hot comb and not tell me.
  • Use hair pins with no protective balls on the end for an updo that rubbed my scalp raw.
  • Trim without my permission.
  • Heat damage my hair straight.
  • Rip through my natural hair with a fine tooth comb.
  • And my aunt blow dried my natural 4b hair unstretched, THEN proceed to comb it out dry and shunken.
I say all this to let you know that you are not alone and you will recover. We ladies spend hundreds to thousands of dollars maintaining our hair. Not to mention all the hours of work, blood, sweat, and tears we put in to take care of our hair. I've worked way too hard and cried tears trying to get my hair right.

This is not directed to OP because it's not your fault but ladies if something doesn't feel right, stop what's happening. We are the ones who have something to lose. We have to retrain ourselves to not worry about being rude or looking crazy. All these setbacks have taught me to be bold. We have to get up and walk out with wet hair if need be. Forget what they will think about you. Forget them!

I have one stylist I trust. She is expensive but I pay because it's not worth getting f'd over looking for someone new. OP if you ever visit NC I can refer you to her.

Oh damn. Those bullet points of what stylists have done to you is the reason I'd end up fighting someone :mad::swearing:
 
OP I am so sorry this happened to you. The good news is the lesson you've gotten from this experience and hair is repairable and will regrow.

I am not a confrontational person but I'd have protested long before it got out of hand. I've walked out of a salon with wet hair before. I believe I posted about my experience here last summer. The owner didn't like me lecturing the wash girl on how to detangle my wet hair. All I was trying to communicate to the non English speaking girl was that detangling under running water would save my hair and both of us a headache. No twit, you don't run a comb through my tangles wet hair while my head is in the sink and the water is right under your nose. I'll leave

I didn't give them a cent.
 
My goodness! And I thought that I had a bad salon experience. It's a good thing that you left before she would do further damage because I have no doubt that if you had stayed, your hair probably would have been irreparable.

Side note, trust google reviews over Facebook. Facebook reviews could easily be family and friends trying to make the salon out to be something it isn't.

They CLEARLY don't know how to do natural hair because they were treating your hair like it was relaxed which is a HUGE problem. Highly textured hair cannot be handled the same as relaxed hair!

I am SO sorry OP. I really am.
 
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My goodness! And I thought that I had a bad salon experience. It's a good thing that you left before she would do further damage because I have no doubt that if you had stayed, your hair probably would have been irreparable.

Side note, trust google reviews over Facebook. Facebook reviews could easily be family and friends trying to make the salon out to be something it isn't.

They CLEARLY don't know how to do natural hair because they were treating your hair like it was relaxed which is a HUGE problem. Highly textured hair cannot be handled the same as relaxed hair!

I am SO sorry OP. I really am.
Thanks for the tip about Google reviews. I'll be using that from now on.
 
@Royalq
I could barely get through the post. I'm just so tired of hearing these stories. Naturals have become so invested in our hair that we have now resorted to researching salons and stylists to ensure our hair won't be chop, butchered and destroyed beyond repair, just to end up at a salon who lies and with a stylist who doesn't know jack about natural hair.

She asked you if you were tenderheaded not to insult you, but because she wanted to "appear" sensitive and didn't want you to find fault with her girl. Hence her google reviews.

I know this sounds bad, but when I'm reading reviews, depending on what I'm reviewing, I look at pictures of the posters, ethnicities and even look for keywords that let me know a reviewers background. Definitely stick with google reviews.
 
I just (as in less than 2 hours ago) had my own nightmare, multi-dread detangling session caused by my own neglect and, FWIW, both the CRN Moroccan Pear Conditioner and TGIN Mask helped me out tremendously with a sick amount of slip. I'm so sorry you had to go through that foolishness.
 
Sorry you had such a bad experience. I cannot imagine having someone rip out my hair and I pay them. Next time, if you wear wigs, get one and then braid up your hair and put it on until you feel like tacking you hair yourself.:afro:
 
Why do we (customers) feel we have to put up with this jacked up service? What is it that makes us sit in chairs and endure someone ripping your hair out? And then pay them??? I'm not just directing this towards OP...I have also suffered at the hands of a stylist when I was young and didn't know anything about my hair.

OP, I am sorry this happened to you....but I hope you become empowered to not allow something like this to happen to you again!
 
See this is why women come to the salon with their own products and instructions for the stylists. Then the stylists huff and puff when you start telling them "no, can you put conditioner first, then use this wide tooth comb that I brought with me and start at the bottom". If they knew what they were doing we wouldn't have to do that.

I feel like anyone going to a salon these days should start out seeing what the stylist can do when they sit in their chair. But if things start to go awry you are definitely prepared to get them back on track. The only problem with that is you are paying them while you are teaching them how to do your hair and for all that I would do my own.

I'm so sorry this happened to you op ad I'm glad you wrote a review so everyone knows what's really going on in that salon.
 
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