Sucky Supercuts and the amazing Liz Tinker

ORIGINAL:

(The color God gave me, which always looks darker when curly)

BEFORE:

(The glorious blonde highlights I loved so much, courtesy of Liz Tinker)

DURING:

(The hideous gothic darkenss cast upon me by Supercuts)

AFTER:

(The perfect, shiny color my husband claims is "exactly what he wanted")

About two months ago, my highlights were growing in and I was short on cash and time.  I loved my normal hair stylist, but due to my hectic work and school schedule, I didn't feel that I could get in to see her.  Supercuts seemed like the answer- get in, get out, get on with my life.  As I was only desiring to go back to my natural color (which all but the top layers of my hair already were, as well as my roots), I didn't figure that it would be too much trouble. 

As you can tell, I did not depart from Supercuts with my natural color.  In fact, I left Supercuts with a color that was completely unnatural and prompted lots of teasing and comments.  I even had one friend inquire as to where the dwarves were.  (That got me to the tanning bed.)  When I exclaimed "My hair is black!" to the hair dresser, she replied "Oh, it will fade."  (By the way, this comment makes me think of the scene in Bride Wars where Kate Hudson's character freaks out about her hair and shouts "It's blue!  My hair's blue!".)  It didn't fade...at all....my boss even asked me if it was getting darker.  Which just made me feel awesome.  Everytime I caught my reflection in the mirror, I had to double take- I literally did not recognize myself.  My hair was darker than Lee's!!

After two weeks, I went in to Supercuts to complain that my hair hadn't faded.  The staff on duty couldn't have been more unhelpful.  They said that if I had complained at the time of the service that they could have done something about it, but that I had waited too long.  That seriously ticked me off, because I had told the stylist at the time of the service that I was unhappy with the blackness that had overtaken my hair.  I left very frustrated at the lack of empathy from the employees.

About three weeks after that, I went back to Supercuts to vent my frustrations again.  Not only had my hair failed to fade, my golden roots were now growing in- stark evidence that my natural color was not achieved in the coloring process.  Two more unsympathetic employees told me that "it just takes awhile to fade".  One of them showed me her hair, stating that it was black like mine in December and had only now started to fade.  Which is great....except that I didn't want to wait until May to have normal hair.  I explained to them that I was very unsatisfied with their service, and that I planned on warning my friends and family to never patronize Supercuts again.  They replied to that with "Well, if that's how you feel, we can't do anything about it."  Wow.  They showed me a Paul Mitchell shampoo they claimed would help speed the fading process- for a mere $40.  I tried to convince them to give me the shampoo, but they balked, saying that they weren't authorized to do such a thing.  So I stupidly shelled out even more cash and bought the shampoo.  I went next door to Starbucks to pep my spirits with a skinny caramel latte.  While there, I briefly complained about Supercuts, and the nice barista said "Yeah, we get that all the time."  Wow again.

I got home and used this special shampoo for about a week.  I happened to read the back of the bottle one day, where it clearly read "Safe for Color Treated Hair."  At this point I wanted to cuss.  Maybe I even did.

Finally, I sucked it up and called my normal hair stylist.  I've been seeing Liz for a little over two years and think she's the best in town.  I discovered her at Ulta and followed her to Studio2 in Bixby.  Everytime I leave her swivel chair, my hair looks infinitely better.  If you need proof, see pictures 1 and 3 above.  In a little under three hours, she had my hair back to a color that is perfect.  I am so pleased with her artistry and also the fact that she didn't yell "I told you so" when I cofessed my hair sins to her.

Do you have any terrible hair stories?