This is the complaint made on June 7 to the State Cosmetology Board in California:
This is a joint complaint by Linda W. And Brenda B. For two hair highlights and against one salon.
I, Linda, called Main Street Hair on 6/1/04 and asked for someone who was experienced in doing highlights. Was referred to Donna, a stylist there.
I told her that my sister (Brenda) who is visiting me on her vacation and I both wanted to get highlights done and that we both had dyed our hair before. I had no highlights in my hair at that time.
She said to come in on Thursday at 9:30 am and she could do us both because she had all day to spend on us. We arrived on time and discussed what we wanted done and told her again that we had color on our hair previously.
I had used Loreal Caramel Permanant Color about 6 months prior to that, that is all that was on my hair and I had about 3 inches of outgrowth of natural hair at the root.
My sister's hair had highlights and color by a salon in Michigan done about a month prior, but wanted some more highlights in her hair. She doesn't know what chemicals were used then.
Donna, the hairdresser, did not do a strand test or a skin test on either one of us.
Donna began to put a white creamy substance on my sister's hair and foiling it with tinfoil.
She put a cape on me, too. But it was taking so long to do my sister's hair, I complained of being hot in the cape, so she turned around to me and took it off me.
I was not being processed yet. Just waiting in the chair next to my sister. She said she couldn't do both at once, I said fine, no problem, I'll just wait.
She put the creamy substance that we were told was Light Exposure by Matrix on my sister's hair. We did not know this until 5 phone calls and a day later what she had put on my sister's hair.
They said they threw the box in the trash and had to call Matrix to find out what they had used.
In the meantime, she put my sister under the hair dryer and suddenly started to put foil in my hair. I was kind of surprised, since she had said she could not work on us both at the same time.
By this time my sister had the bleach on her head for about 3 applications and over two hours. I believe it was about 12 o'clock by then.
She put about 8 bowls of bleach on Brenda's hair that day. Never rinsing any of it off all day long. She sprayed water on it, then reapplied the bleach.
I saw her with a water bottle and another bottle, but she denied spraying water on us and said it was reconstructor. She said I don't have to worry about it.
Me and my sister began to voice concern about putting bleach on and leaving it for so long. Donna, the hairdresser said, "I'm worried about your hair too." to my sister.
By this time, she already had foils in the lower back portion of my hair, otherwise I would have gotten up and left right then. She never put the cape back on me and she dripped bleach and wiped her fingers all over my shirt. Front and back.
All I had on for protection was a towel about the size of a dishrag that didn't go past either shoulder.
After getting my sister out of the dryer, she sat her next to me and left the foil on her, my sisters hair was still orange. My sister and I were complaining about the foils and the way she was doing our hair.
She was using the same comb, the same bowl of bleach and the same brush to apply the bleach to both of us, no disinfecting in between.
The lighting in the shop was flourescent lights in a very high ceiling, so it was hard to see what color the hair really was. After she had the bleach on my sister's hair for around 4 hours, she rinsed her out.in the meantime, I am still sitting under the foils.
She mixed up another bowl of bleach and this time it was a pale lavender or purple in color. She opened the foils that I had on my head with the white bleach which I now know according to them is: Light Exposure Matrix and applied the light purple one that was told to me to be V-Lights Matrix.
She then put me under the hair dryer and I now know that V-Lights is not formulated for heat to be applied. It says NO HEAT according to manufacturer's directions.
We found out the next day they were using only 20 volume peroxide and we are both just a few shades above a medium brown with colored hair.
From all accounts and research, we believe she used the wrong volume of peroxide or developer for our hair. And it should have been a 30 or 40 volume.
While foiling our hair, she was undoing the foils and kept touching the dry hair that was not to be highlighted on either of us with her fingers (no gloves worn) and her fingers were wet with the bleaching agent.
It caused our darker hair to turn brassy red. The foils were put on incorrectly and were actually falling off our hair into the floor and she just started ripping more foil from the pack and encircling our hair with it and smashing it onto our hair by squeezing it on.
No folding or continuity to it at all. She picked up some of the foils off the floor and put them back into our hair.
My hair and my sister's hair looks almost the same now that she finished them. We both have roots left anywhere from 1/2 and an inch long to two or three inches long with spotted hair from the bleeding of the bleach from where the foils leaked and fell off and the bleach got on the hairs that were supposed to be dry.
There are big blotches all over both of us. It appears like we never got our hair done for about a year, both our crowns are totally dark and there are rainbow effects all over our head in autumn colors and white.
We both basically have the colors of a calico cat, that is the best description I can think of to tell you. The foils were all over with no pattern to them and she had the dried hair twisted all over like a rat's nest. Neither of us had ever seen anything like it when experiencing highlights at a salon.
She kept apologizing about my shirt being ruined, but never offered to compensate me for it. She offered to redo my hair. She offered a toner for my hair. I opted to not allow her to do anymore work on my hair. She appears flustered and incompetent.
The 3 owners of the hair salon were all present when she was having problems and never offered to assist her in any way or to take over for her, even though they could see she was having problems doing our hair.
It is worth mentioning that one of the owners is Donna's sister. I cannot remember her name. She came over and looked at my sister's hair and said"It's not orange." But it was.
All 3 owners were gone from the salon by the time we finally were on our way out of there at around 3pm that day. I told her I didn't want her to do anymore to my hair and I refused to pay for her services as I was already out what hair I had and a 60.00 shirt. My sister wrote a check to the salon for 60.00 and we left.
My sister and I arrived home and when we were able to see our hair under proper lights, we discovered the true look of her hair. My sister called her bank the next morning and stopped payment on her check to Main Street Hair. They ran to the bank with her check and had hit the night depository the night before, but she managed to stop it. We wanted to wait and see if they would voluntarily refund it, but we felt they would never turn it loose once they got it, so she stopped it.
We called them the next day on June 4 and started trying to discover what they had put on our hair. Apparently they do not have invoices, MSDS sheets or client records because they told my sister that they threw the box away and had to call Matrix to find out what they put on our hair.
We asked for a meeting for the following Monday at 3PM and it was agreed that the 3 owners and me and my sister were to meet at their shop at that time.
We ended up calling over to the salon between the two of us a total of about 5 times that day trying to find out what they put on our hair, first they gave my sister the run around 3 times on the phone and the last two times I called.
They knew the name of the Vlights, but couldn't say what the other was, that turned out to be Light Exposure according to them. Since it was the product they had used the longest and was replaced by Vlights, we found it odd that no one knew the name.
They said they ran out of it and had to call Matrix since the box was in the trash. They also said that it had been discontinued. I called Matrix and they said it was not discontinued.
At one point on the phone, when Linda made the appointment to meet with us, she informed my sister that she had called the color tech from Matrix to come and be at the Monday meeting. We were delighted to hear that, due to the chemicals that were used. Especially me, since she used two kinds of bleach on my hair at the same time, one over the other.
They gave us the name of the Matrix/Roux representative to be Susan Ritter. We thought it odd that a Matrix rep would also rep Roux products. We began calling around to see if indeed Susan Ritter was the Matrix rep and found out that she is not.
We called the corporate office and the representative of the Lake Elsinore, Temecula area and talked to her and she said she had never heard of a Susan Ritter. We were very curious as to whether or not anyone would show up on Monday at the meeting claiming to be a Matrix rep. See Result for more information on this.
On Monday at appx. 3pm Brenda Burnett (my sister) and I walked into the Main Street Hair Salon. Linda and Julian, two of the owners were there.
I asked where the Matrix rep was and Linda said, "It wasn't a Matrix rep, it was someone from Farouk". Somewhere neither my sister or I had never heard of.
My sister wrote down what Linda said on the phone before and it was definitely Matrix rep named Susan Ritter. Otherwise we would have asked her at that time why she wasn't bringing in a Matrix rep, since it was their products they used on us, supposedly.
I said why would we want to talk to someone not from where the product line you were using? I got no answer to that. We had prepared bills for them for my shirt, a redo from a corrective color salon to fix our hair back to status quo and for conditioners that are going to be necessary to keep our hair from being damaged further and to head off potential breakage.
Both of us are very dry and hair is beginning to break off. Brenda (my sister) asked both Linda and Julian if we were to let them redo our hair, who is qualified to do it that works in their shop? Neither one answered her question.
When we were discussing with Linda and Julian the issues, things were calm and then a young girl walked in and didn't introduce herself and came up and grabbed our papers off the desk and began reading them.
(We later figured out she worked at the bathing suit shop called DANGEROUS CURVES next door to the salon.) The owner of the bathing suit shop was there at the salon too, and not getting her hair done either. She was there to give us crap and she didn't even know us or anything about the situation.
My sister asked who she was. She announced she was a "second year law student". She was quite rude and antagonistic. The owners of the shop did nothing to quell her attitude toward me and my sister.
She suddenly asked the owners about the cape and they said I took it off because I was hot. And that is not true in total. I said I was hot and Donna took it off me before she'd started on my hair that day (the air conditioner was not even turned on in the shop yet at that time) and when she finally began to do my hair, she neglected to put it on and I did not think to tell her to do it.
I still at that point thought she knew what she was doing. The "second year law student" said "YOU GET NOTHING!" several times and I told her to kiss my butt. She referenced my age and made several snide remarks.
Then the owner of the shop next door to their salon came in and started giving me and my sister a hard time verbally. It was like being attacked by people you didn't even know and they didn't know anything about us. They were lecturing us as Linda and Julian sat there and said nothing.
I told them to shut up, we weren't there to talk to them, we were there to settle the problem. They got loud and we did too, it was very insulting to have our hair ruined, my clothing ruined and then have them yelling at us.
They were actually yelling over us, when we were trying to address Linda and Julian and wouldn't let us talk at all. We finally left. Nothing was resolved, the "second year law student" just kept making faces at me and talking over us.
It was the most unprofessional situation either me or my sister have been in and we are not happy that they were able to drag us down to their level of behavior.
During the "meeting" Linda, the owner of the shop said she heard my sister say that she did not pay the salon in Michigan for the last hair do. That is not true. My sister paid 95.00 to her hairdresser in Michigan and that can be proven.
She was attempting to make us seem like we were not damaged, but merely running a scam on them to get free product. My sister can produce a cancelled check for that if necessary. Then they asked me for a reciept for the shirt. I didn't have one. It is not customary for me to keep receipts for anything that is not tax related.
I bought the shirt at Robinson's May and the day at the shop was only the second time I had ever worn it. I paid 60.00 for the shirt.
The law student said, "Sure you paid 60.00 dollars for that, yeah right. Sure you did." Very sarcastic and was definitely calling me a liar about the shirt, even though she could see the shirt I showed it to her, covered with bleached out stains.
Again, the two owners, Linda and Julian did nothing but sit there. When we left the shop the law student ran behind us down the street and was yelling "WHAT AN ASS!!!"
My sister went back inside and told the owners "Shame on you for what you have done." I followed my sister back to the shop and then we both left. We barely got a word in edgewise due to the 2 guests Linda and Julian allowed to come into the meeting.
And Linda and Julian were less than helpful. Nothing resolved at all.
We want you to determine whether or not we were mislead by the shop regarding qualifications to do the highlighting job we requested. We want you to prevent anyone else being victimized the way we were. We want to be compensated for having our hair returned to the status quo and payment for my shirt that was ruined. Also, the stylist was not operating in a sanitary manner and we would like for you to check this out.
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