I made a hair appointment in the spa at my gym last time I went for a haircut. The appointment was to see the same stylist again. I got a call a week or so ago to say the stylist had left and they could give me an appointment for today at the same price with a different stylist. That was all fine. When I arrive I recognise the stylist as being someone who usually, to my knowledge, does facials. Don't you do beauty treatments, I asked. Yeah and I also do haircuts, sometimes, she replied, laughing. Sometimes, I queried, giving a nervous laugh in reply. Oh yes, she says merrily sitting me down and putting a cape on me.
So she's very nice and jolly, and keeps calling me sweetie, which disarms me for some reason, and the English embarrassment thing kicks in and I wimpily sit there thinking this has disaster written all over it whilst being unable to leg it as I know I should.
She discusses how much I want cut off and I reign in my request to a mere inch thinking that gives me spare hair in case it all goes wrong and then she starts to spray my hair with water. I ask is she not going to wash it. Oh no, I wash it after I've cut she says, merrily, as is evidently her wont.
I've never had that done before, I say feeling really alarmed now. Oh, every stylist does it differently she says, merrily, obviously.
I've got thick shoulder length hair in a long bob sort of style with no layers as such - I just have a bit of the 'weight' taken out at the bottom usually.
It's just been lightly sprayed so it's not wet at all and she proceeds to comb it (which rather hurts because it's not at all wet) and then cuts straight round the bottom in one fail swoop without sectioning it. She then starts lifting up chunks, again without dividing the hair into sections, dragging the comb through to layer the ends. (This really hurts because my thick hair is bone dry!)
I again say, I've never had my haircut like this before. Oh really she says looking surprised, how has it been done before? And I detail how, apart from it usually (always!) being washed first, it is usually (always!) sectioned into layers before being cut. Oh, every stylist does it differently, I get again.
I then see her business card and she is described as 'Nail Technician, Esthetician, Stylist'.
Matters don't improve. Bizzarelly she shampoos me three times - again, something that has never happened before at a hairdresser's!
So the long and short of it is I've been given a really bad haircut by a nail technician, who is incredibly pleasant, and I have been too much of a drip to say she has done a really, really rough job and instead I smile limply when she asks how I like it, hand over somewhere in the region of £45 (I'm overseas), and walk out planning to go elsewhere to pay again (!) to have it put right.
Do I complain to the salon manager? My hesitation is that although I think it's the salon's fault for giving someone a role cutting hair when they demonstrably don't know what they are doing, I fear it will be the sweet woman who will get it in the neck or who will end up feeling bad. Do I just write it off to experience (and let someone else kick up a fuss)?