uptown curl

I saw Lauren to get some blonde highlights put in my hair. I am well aware of the challenges of adding blonde to some hair types, however, I have been having blonde put in my hair for 10+ years, so this was not a new thing for me to be trying. After coloring my hair, Lauren added an express, violet toner to wash away the warmth and the brassiness from my blonde. After 5 minutes of the express toner on my hair, she told me that my hair still wasn’t where it should be. She then proceeded to walk away for what seemed to be much longer than another 5 minutes, while I sat there with this express toner on my hair. Due to the porosity level of my hair being very high, my hair absorbed ALL of the violet, therefore dying my ENTIRE head BRIGHT PINK!!! My hair looked like it belonged to a cartoon character. I had my head in the rinse bowl for OVER AN HOUR, as Lauren tried bleach washing my hair and everything else possible to strip the toner out, but I was still left with a head FULL of pink hair, to which Lauren responded to me, “shit happens,” …. She then tried to make light of it by saying that it almost looked like a rose gold, however, I did not care because I went in for a simple blonde and left with PINK hair. Calling it “rose gold,” does not minimize the situation, in fact it only invalidated how pissed off I was feeling. After going home and trying SO hard to wash it out, I was still left with pink all over my head, my hair was also COMPLETELY fried from the rounds of bleach washing. After speaking with the owner, Kristy, I returned the next day to see Justyne, with hopes that she would be able to fix it. Justyne is great, by the way. She kindly validated that my hair was EXTREMELY pink and very fried, and she attempted to continue stripping out the toner. She was able to pull some more of the pink out, not all, just some. After a MONTH, I was still left with pink in my hair. I returned once again to Uptown Curl and saw Kristy. I would like to state that she did not charge me for any subsequent visits, and I was also refunded for my initial visit that dyed my hair pink (I honestly can’t believe I was even charged at all to begin with by Lauren). While I appreciate that, it still does not make up for the entirety of this problem. As a new resident of Minneapolis, I intentionally sought out a salon that I hoped I could trust, especially considering they “specialize” in curly hair. I cannot even articulate the level of disappointment and distrust I feel for Uptown Curl. After Kristy tried fixing my hair, it still looked very artificial. You could easily tell that it was a color correction on top of a color correction. I decided to seek out advice from a woman (unfortunately she is not nearby) who has known me and my hair for many years. When I explained to her everything that happened, she was in disbelief that a toner could do SO much damage to my hair. Porosity of my hair aside, she reiterated to me that a simple bleach wash and mineral treatment, (something Uptown Curl had already done on my hair) should have been able to lift the toner right out. She indicated to me that either Lauren initially grabbed the wrong toner for my hair without realizing, or that she just simply wasn’t honest about how long she left it on my hair (mind you, she completely walked away more than once while the toner wreaked havoc on my hair). This was the absolute, last thing I expected from a curly hair SPECIFIC salon. Although I am grateful that they attempted to fix my hair free of charge, I can honestly say that I wish I had NEVER stepped into Uptown Curl.