Ulta Salon: Should I keep pressing for a redo or be grateful it’s not worse and take the L?
Hi! I used Ulta’s salon yesterday for the first time. Here’s the context:
I just had 2 babies back to back. So I put all hair care on hold for roughly 18 months. 3 months ago (when I was 2 months post partum) I had my hair done with a professional stylist from a very overgrown old highlight. Highlights have been my style of choice for years bc I like how it accents my curly hair. That stylist bleached my hair for a partial highlight to add low lights and then gave me a dark brunette toner (when I asked for bright, blonde, fresh highlights). I addressed it immediately and she threw some haphazard foils back on right there and let it sit for 20 minutes or so. Which obviously wasn’t enough time to cut through the toner the just applied. But I still was charged full price (paid $350) for the half highlights and have worn the hair the last 3 months. A kind of dull, brassy highlight.
So I go to ulta yesterday bc the stylists around me charge quotes up to $450 for a full highlight. I knew ulta was probably going to be a coin toss but hey, to save $200-$300….I took the chance.
I explain to my ulta stylist yesterday this exact context. I show the two reference photos of my hair as I usually like it (bright, blonde highlights). I was coming in already kind of halfway there so I was hopeful it’d be easy enough.
After I get out of the bowl from washing the toner, I can tell i’m brunette. I bring it up like “hey I don’t want to come off that I don’t trust you but I’m just worried that this isn’t bright blonde…it seems really dark.” She said “oh well yeah it’s going to be about the same as before.” I explain that I don’t want the same as before, I wanted to be brighter, up maybe 2 levels to the levels in the photo. She then tells me “well it’ll lighten up as you wash out the free gloss I added in the bowl. The gloss is free and included in the highlight service and it’ll make you look darker at first. But when it washes out you’ll be brighter. But the gloss lasts 6-8 weeks”.
I don’t know if that’s true or not, but I’m getting mixed messages. She took a really long time brushing product into my wet hair and offered to diffuse it, put the diffuser on for a couple seconds per section, and then said diffusing will make my hair frizzy (eh).
So then I’m leaving with damp hair so the final color can’t really be seen yet. At check out, I bring it up again, “I believe you that it’ll maybe lighten a bit with a few washes, but was there a reason that we couldn’t get to the level of reference photos that I showed? I’m just still not understanding super well.” And she said it was the color job from my previous stylist 3 months ago. That she more or less was color correcting her job that she did and that the brown color she added to my hair was bleaching out orange and she spent today trying to blend it out.
I said okay I can understand that but that’s a bummer bc I wasn’t told that during the bleaching process or at any part that the goal wasn’t achievable. Can I come back for a second round for a partial to finish the process?
She said I could come back at 12 weeks out. I said really no sooner? She said it wasn’t healthy for my hair (bc of my curls). I pushed a bit, bc I’ve had color correction services done in the past and didn’t have to wait 3 months between sessions, like maybe a week. She agreed to schedule me 2 months out. She agreed to 8 weeks out but said no earlier bc she didn’t want to compromise my hair.
I’ve gotten home, since washed it several times, re dried and I’m honestly just straight brunette. I’m really bummed bc I took extra shifts to pay for this service to get blonde highlights (now 5 months postpartum). I ended up calling the salon to ask if I could schedule a redo bc I’m not feeling satisfied that I spent 3 hours getting bleached to be brunette (again). I was told the stylist said it was a previous color problem and I couldn’t come back for 8 weeks. I pushed that again and said but can we not do a redo partial to let bleach sit and cut through the color longer? Even just around the face to brighten it. It’s not going from black box dye to blonde. I really don’t like my hair and my hair was only bleached 3 months ago, after 18 months. She said ok 4 weeks out but your stylist says no earlier bc of safety for your hair.
I’m just frustrated that I told her what happened, I was so excited for this, and this stylist did the exact same thing the previous stylist did. I think she was more intimidated that my hair is curly (aka extra porous and sensitive to bleach) and she is being really cautious not to accidentally fry it all off. But my hair is healthy, I’ve had highlights dozens and dozens of times through the years and really can’t wrap my head around this 6 month journey to get some blonde streaks in my hair.
Am I over reacting? I’ve read now on the thread that it seems really hit or miss. Should I just take the L on this and be grateful it didn’t go worse and find another solution elsewhere. Ideally I’d like a refund at this point bc the extra work I did to earn this service for my postpartum mommy glow up now seems completely wasted :/
Thanks for your perspective and sorry for the long post!