Highlights are the opposite of a root stretch / bayalage, right?!

[pandarific]

I'm so annoyed. Sitting in the hairdressers, chair I have been given 'high up highlights' to 'blend in' my cm of dark blonde roots all the way around, to the rest of the colour which was a block blonde colour.

That's not what I wanted or asked for, I asked for my colour to be taken back to my natural dark blonde to create low maintenance roots, with blonder bits at the end, ala the picture.

This is going to look shite and nothing like the picture, isn't it?

Highlights are most definitely not the opposite of balayage- balayage is basically just freehand highlights.

Seems like something has gone wrong in translation, did they see your photo? It’s worth letting them know that you’re not happy now so they can hopefully rectify it ASAP. I guess they’re blending the lighter blonde with your current darker blonde roots, so that in the future when your roots grow in, it will all still blend? Rather than dragging your root colour out today.

When I went to get my bleached hair balayaged with the ultimate aim of getting back to my natural colour, they did the same thing. Basically my hair was too bleached to effectively dye the ends the same as my roots, so they added some extra highlights that went to the roots and semi-perm dyed the rest.

TBH it still looked shit.

Well I think it looks rubbish and nothing like the picture. I've still got noticeable roots and now just really bright highlights up the top of my head - she's done nothing at all to the block colour, so no different tones ala the picture.

If I'd said 'I would like bright blonde highlights high up on my head' then fine, but I didn't. I explained I wanted low maintenance, my natural root colour plus blonder bits down the end and showed the picture (so... a bayalage).

AIBU here? Any hairdressers about? Im gutted as a) it's not what I asked for or showed them and b) going to look crap again in a month when it grows. I wanted it to look beautiful while I grow it out, I'm gutted - there's no way I can afford to have it redone somewhere else.

Why does this always happen?! I go in to an actual salon with clear instructions, I take a picture for reference and it still doesn't bloody work. Gah!

@hannnnnnnxo but I wanted my root colour dragged out and that's what I asked for and they've not done it at all!

I don't think you're being unreasonable atall, that's not balayage and that's not what you asked for.

Similar happened to me before, my hair is naturally dark blonde and was dyed quite light blonde but I had a lot of roots so asked for essentially what you wanted and she dyed my entire hair brown and put some blonde highlights in!

I find It's always tricky to say anything at the hairdressers though. It still looks lovely, it's not a bad dye job but it's definitely not what you asked for!

Call them and complain! I would expect them to drag out your roots as you wanted, a conditioning treatment for the unnecessary bleaching and the ends lightened if they didn’t do that before. Don’t settle for mediocre, you paid for a service and they got it wrong.

I agree that it doesn’t look bad though - it’s just not what you wanted. If I saw you out and about I wouldn’t have thought you had a disastrous salon visit at all!

Also might be worth getting this thread moved to the beauty boards!

And as an aside , How do you pronounce bayalage?

I have called them and explained my issue - I'm going back in at 11 for them 'to see what they can do'. Also my hair is apparently 'short for a balayage' and root matching can be 'difficult'. not using these guys again!

I am going to ask for a root stretch - shouldn't be difficult to do over what's there, right? It's essentially mixing a colour that matches my roots and painting it halfway down the hair...?

Sort of, but they have to make sure the freshly bleached areas blend in so you don’t have a harsh demarcation line between the root stretch colour and what you already have. This may involve using multiple colours etc.

This time I would take in loads of photos that clearly show what you’re after, including the root colour as they probably need the visual guide lol

Also another issue you have is that they gave you standard, basic highlights rather than balayage highlights which are free handed and not as close together/uniform if that makes sense? If I haven’t explained that well, watch some balayage videos on YouTube to better see the difference

Also balayage can be done on bobs!

ballet (like the dance) arge (like large without the l)

I pronounce it bailey arge

I think it looks lovely but it's not what you asked for at all.

I want my hair like the first photo!

This was my hair after having balayage/root drag type highlights. What youve had done is nothing like that.

Having a bit of a wobble about letting this particular salon go anywhere near me again tbh. Hair looks even worse this am, highlights have gone very yellowy bleach blonde and lovely and fried/dry feeling... I'm not confident in them being able to do anything like the below pictures.

I think I'll just ask for a refund or partial refund (they can keep the cost of the cut and blow dry) and try and hunt down some sort of amazing colour genius to fix it.

What happened when you went in?

Yes, balayage is an advanced colouring technique and is more time consuming and expensive than people may first assume. It really does take a good stylist/salon to deliver the results you want, it’s not the type of service that you can just go anywhere for, like a blow dry. If you state your rough general area, someone may be able to recommend a salon?

They want me to go back in to have it fixed rather than a refund 'we spent 3 hours doing it' - well yes, but completely wrong! I'd ideally rather not as their 'senior colourist' is honestly not a day over 20 years old, but fine, whatever, as long as my hair is less shit afterwards and I don't have to pay any more money.

However then he started going on about a free blow dry and cut 'the next time I come in' and as it was very hot (pregnant, it was roasting in there) I wasn't quite sure whether he meant he expected me to pay for the fix or not. I've emailed a follow up to clarify, but feck that - if you mess it up completely you fix it at your cost, not the customer's, imo.

I'm hoping he does expect me to pay, in which case I can just refuse, insist on a refund of at least half and go somewhere else to get it fixed.

I would email them photographs of what you want and state that if they don’t think they can deliver what you want, that you want a refund so that you can go elsewhere. Mention how they unnecessarily bleached your roots when you wanted the roots to be dragged out, so unnecessary damage there.
They didn’t listen to you and did something completely different etc.

Did you pay with card or cash? This might sound extreme but you are covered with a salon service as you would be with any other purchase, so you could possibly file a dispute with your bank to get your money back if you didn’t receive what you paid for. This is a last resort through - hopefully they offer an acceptable resolution