Hair colour disaster in salon

Kiwi in IE

Hi I would really appreciate advice on dealing with a hair salon where I have had very unsatisfactory service.

Six weeks ago I had my hair highlighted and it resulted in a lighter colour ring around the top of my head. An orangey brown colour when the rest of my hair is dark brown. I have been back on two occasions before going in again today to complain and ask them to fix it, on both occasions they provided a temporary solution that made the problem less obvious for a period of time, but which eventually washed out leaving the band very noticeable. I went back today and asked for them to fix it permanently, they then did a 'strand test' on my hair and told me that due to the condition of my hair, they were unable to do anything other than a conditioning treatment and blow dry (not going to make any difference to a bad colour).

I attempted to ring head office to no avail. Because my hair looked so bad I went to another salon and got a second opinion after telling them what <SNIP> had said about condition. They did not think that putting darker highlights through the dark ring would be a problem and did this for me (it is not fixed yet but more bearable).

I eventually got hold of <SNIP> head office. They were very unsympathetic and basically accused me of using a home hair dye, I have been in their salon every 3 weeks to get my grey roots covered for the past 18 months, so why would I buy a home hairdye and apply it only to a band of hair around the top of my head? They told me that because I had gone to a 'third party' they could not help me and would not reimburse me the price for having it corrected elsewhere.

Where do I stand legally here?

wmpdd3

You have 2 options.

As I think you have exhausted attempts to rectify this with the salon, next option is Small claims court. With this, the best you can hope for is a refund of what you paid, also all the work the company has done already could be taken away from the refund if the judge agreed with what the salon are saying.

Other option is solicitor. You would have to prove the original issue was caused by the salon. There would be an option to claim for damages in excess of the price paid. You may have to secure an independent report of the work done.

davo10

wmpdd3 wrote: »

You have 2 options.

As I think you have exhausted attempts to rectify this with the salon, next option is Small claims court. With this, the best you can hope for is a refund of what you paid, also all the work the company has done already could be taken away from the refund if the judge agreed with what the salon are saying.

Other option is solicitor. You would have to prove the original issue was caused by the salon. There would be an option to claim for damages in excess of the price paid. You may have to secure an independent report of the work done.

At the risk of stating the obvious, by the time the OP sees a solicitor, gets an independent report, applies to the SCC and gets a court date, won't her hair have grown, been cut and recoloured to the point where the evidence is probably no longer visible?

coylemj

I'd also query how the OP will get an 'independent' report to use in a possible court case. Anybody in the business is already working for <SNIP> or one of their competitors and if they work in a training school, I'm pretty sure that they probably place a lot of their graduates with <SNIP> so are they going to write a report to say that <SNIP> messed up? Mightn't be that easy getting someone who is truly 'independent' to write a report and who is prepared to go into court and back it up.

slimjimmc

OP seems to have abandoned us in favour of Legal Discussion so I see no need to continue here. Thread closed.