NO MORE SALONS FOR ME (kinda long)

[InJesusName]

After rave reviews about them, I visited a Dominican salon. My first experience turned out to be unpleasant because she "texlaxed" my hair without basing it ! Needless to say, I left the salon with burns all over my scalp and underprocessed hair. I did not rule out all Dominican salons, however.

I visited another one for a consultation, and the stylist told me my hair was ugly, so I decided not to patronize that salon. I went to a third one in which I had a pretty pleasant consultation. We agreed that my hair was damaged, but she would help me nurse it back to health. Well, this morning was a different story. First of all, my appointment was at 9:00 and I did not get into A chair until 10:13 ! I say "A" chair because her daughter washed my hair and then puts a mystery conditioner on my hair and rinsed it out and called that conditioning. When I asked her to "Deep Condition" she acted like she could not understand me. To top that off, I noticed other African American clients in there, and most of them had tore up hair. I also noticed another client that barely had 1/8 inch of new growth was getting a touch up! Of course, the first words out of their mouths again were "You need a relaxer". When I told her it had only been two weeks since my last touch up, she told me that I should get them every four to six weeks (LHCF has taught me better than that).

To make a long story short, they did not condition my hair properly, they insist on slapping more chemicals into my already extremely damaged hair, and that darn dryer about burned a hole in my head, and I did not like the way my hair looked when she was done. This was no better than the African American salons I ran from 6 months ago. Maybe things are different in other areas, but North Carolinian Dominican Salons just don't work for me!!!!!!!!!!!

I am not very good at doing my own hair, and I have struggled with this since I decided to go for healthy hair. My hair NEVER looks good anymore, but I just can't have it unhealthy for the sake of "looking nice".

This was the last straw for me. I will continue to practice, but I have finally figured out that no one will take care of your hair like yourself. Sorry this is long. I just had to get this off my chest.

 

[DDTexlaxed]

Sorry this happened to u, IJN. All dom. salons are not equal. There are far too many stylists that treat yr hair horribly. I hope u recover from their abuse. Their high heat dryer is just asking for trouble IMHO. It is far easier to take care of yr own hair. If it wasn't for LHCF, I too would be relaxing every 4-6 weeks.

 

[alwayzblessed]

I can feel your pain. I have had some bad experiences with beauticians. I had gave up on beauticians. Until I ran in to a friend of mine whose hair use to be jacked up( her hair was long, soft and silky). she introduced me to her miracle worker. Now I have a beautician that specialize in healthy hair. When I went in for the consultation the first thing I did was check out her hair. Her hair was on point. The other clients hair looked healthy. I have been going to her for almost a year and my hair thank me by growing like weeds. I think that she have growing fingers.

 

[santia]

Sorry to hear about your horrible experiences. One thing I pay attention to are the other clients hair. That helps me to be a little more at ease before I decide to let them do anything.

 

[Saida]

im sorry to hear that, this is why I never let ANYONE touch my hair!

 

[Lovelylocs]

It's funny b/c I feel the same way today too. My stylist closed down her shop and left town. She was extra careful with my hair and agreed to help me grow my hair down to midback. I don't think I can trust anyone else w/my hair. My stylist taught me how to do rollersets and how to blowout the roots. So, if it weren't for my retouches, I wouldn't have to go to the salon at all. Unfortunately, I am too scared to try to do those myself again. I haven't decided what I want to do.

I haven't really seen too many examples of self-relaxers whose results are as good or better than those who get their hair done in the shop. However, I do remember meeting a very nice Panamanian woman who self-relaxes b/c her aunt used to perm her hair in Panama, but when she moved here she didn't have anyone to perm her hair for her. She uses Sebastian Penetraitt as well. Her hair looked very healthy. I wonder if I could safely self-relax... hmmm. Then, I would only go for cuts/big trims and that would be at a really nice salon, not one in the "hood".

 

[scribblescrabble2]

I am sorry about your bad salon experience. I don't go to salons either, because I don't trust anyone with my natural hair because it seems like the first thing stylists want to do is fry my hair with some king of heat appliance.

When I had a relaxer, I remember going to a few Dominican salons many years ago and I didn't have great, earth shattering experiences either (I used to live in NYC). And all the dominican salons I went to had the habit of making women with very nappy hair feel bad, demeaning them if they waited too long to get a relaxer. I don't know if that type of treatment is typical in those kinds of salons, but it left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

 

[Candiss]

I am so sorry that happened to you. I remember similiar situations happening to me int the past that completely turned me off to stylists. Recently I met with a stylist recommended on this board. She has a beautiful head of hair and told me that she teaches her clients to relax only four times a year. She also told me that she does not think I should perm my natural hair and if I decided I still wanted to perm she would only perm part of it and not the very top because my hair is baby fine. I was really impressed with her. I really feel like the key to finding the right stylist is to have a free consultation before they work on your hair. This way you can get a sense of their hair philosophy and also get a good look at how they service other customers. Also, you can check out the hair of the stylist and clients beforehand, if their hair is jacked up or the stylist is evasive or shows hair care ignorance, then don't go back.

 

[dlewis]

I feel for you, I have been through 3 beauticians, now I'm on my 4th. I mostly take care of my own hair. I hope you find a routine that works or you.

 

[mahogany66]

I am sorry to hear of your horrible experiences with salons. I just recently started to take my hair in MY OWN HANDS but before that I would take ALL of my products to the salon and make sure they used them and I would try to use recommendations of friends and family members . I also learned NOT to go to a salon for a relaxer FIRST. Go for a rollerset and sit and watch how they relax hair. It took me a long time to find a stylist who applied relaxers carefully.