I was reminded of a story this morning and I just had to share it…
The craziest, most hilarious, and worst mistake ever made at the salon while I worked as a stylist:
One of my clients was having a hard time getting an appointment with me to have her color done because she had to cancel one day and I was booked up a few weeks out. I suggested she go to another stylist for the appointment so she wouldn't have to wait - all she needed was a simple partial foil and a root touchup. Neutral level 8 (fairly light blonde) with 20 volume developer to cover her grey. No biggie.
The day she came in for her appointment, I was back at the salon after a long and hard weekend working a hair show somewhere out of town, so I was totally exhausted. I said hello and gave her color formula to the stylist who would be doing her hair that day.
The salon is really big but I could see the other stylist's station across the salon and up some stairs from mine, so I would glance over there every so often as I did my last haircut of the day. I looked up there at one point after the color had been shampooed from the client's hair… it looked black. (Should have been blonde remember?) And the client looked like she was crying? Uh oh. Well I couldn't tell exactly what was going on, but then a receptionist came down and told me that instead of using 88/0 (double neutral level 8 blonde) she had used 0/88 (blue...) My client now had BLUE HAIR WITH GREY HIGHLIGHTS.
I immediately broke into a sweat and almost passed out, shit myself and threw up at the same time. DID I ACCIDENTALLY TRANSPOSE THE NUMBERS WHEN I GAVE HER THE FORMULA? HOLY SHIT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD HOLY SHIT. It was a color line we had just started using in the salon, which the stylist was unfamiliar with and wouldn't know otherwise. She was just following the directions I had given her, and I was SO exhausted that day…. HOLY SHIT, BLUE HAIR WITH GREY HIGHLIGHTS!
I stopped what I was doing to check the computer, where I had recorded the formula, and to my relief (THANK GOD) I had typed it correctly. NOT MY FAULT, BITCHES!!! WOO!
I was in the clear, but there was still the problem of having a client with blue hair. She was bawling and the rest of the clients in the salon were staring, nervous in their seats, hoping their hair wasn't going to be turned blue, too...
Guys, luckily color mistakes happen so often that someone invented a magic 3 part concoction called Rusk Elimin8 which removes any oxidative (permanent) hair color (without affecting the natural pigment of the hair) by breaking down the bonds of the color molecules. SCIENCE! By the time I finished flat ironing, I went up to see how things were going and voila…. no more blue hair!
So don't freak out if you or your stylist completely screws up your hair seemingly beyond repair. Seriously, even if they accidentally color your hair blue with grey highlights. It can be fixed :)
Oh yea, and the worst mistake I've ever made on a client was forgetting to do a "blade check." I thought I was holding a pair of my texturizing shears but I was actually holding straight blades and accidentally cut a big chunk of hair right off the top center of my friend's head (instead of texturizing it.) HAHA! (Sorry, Danielle…) But for the record, I was still in the early stages of my internship, and I ended up getting it to blend in ;)
Good times!
<3 Lindsay
