Granted he or she does preform miracles on a daily basis. I'm writing this because as the daughter of a beautician I hear and witness a lot of the goings on in the salon business and sometimes the customers baffle me. Granted a lot of my mother works with a lot of elderly customers, she still has quite in every stage of life. I still do not understand why some like to make her life so difficult, its to the point where when she has her day fully scheduled to the point where she doesn't even have enough time to eat lunch, customers call wanting to schedule an appointment and when she tells them she is booked solid they ask if she can do there hair on Monday ( her day off). Worst still is that a lot of times she concedes and goes into work on her days off. So I have decided to write a post of simple things you probably have not taken the time to think about when dealing with your hairstylist and others in similar professions.
When you call to make an appointment and the beautician says that she/he is booked solid, it does not mean that she/he is hiding a spot or can magically pull extra time out of his or her ass.
If you call during the middle of the day to make an appointment and decide to start a long conversation, secretly your beautician wishes for a power surge or for you to loose signal, not in a mean way , but while you are talking the beautician is trying to dry a customers hair while keeping an eye on another customers color or any other combination of multitasking hair related things and the phone only means one less hand she/he can use. So please make it short and sweet, unless the beautician is the one to start the long conversation, then by all means chat with her/him.
Being 5 minutes late is not the end of the world, however when you are 30+ minutes late you throw your beauticians day all out of whack and she or he will end up working themselves silly to try and get there other ( more picky) customers done in time. This is a huge pain when other customers have to be somewhere at a certain time.
Bringing your children with you is perfectly fine as long as you know how to control them. Keep them out of the work areas, the employee only room, and away from any cabinets. Beauticians use a lot of Chemicals, cleaning agents , and hot equipment, the last thing they want is for a child to get hurt in the salon, but they can only do so much with there hands tangled in your hair.
Snack trays. If a Salon has one of these be sure to pay the proper amount for the snack you are getting , otherwise the salon owner has to pay the difference. Not cool!
Sometimes hairstylists are late too, they are only human, so don't throw a fit if you have to wait a few minutes, and instead of making them feel bad about it , try a compliment in stead , maybe your hair will turn out extra pretty.
This should go without saying but stay out of the employee only room, unless you work there.
If you have ants in your pants and the salon is small, please don't get in the hair stylists way, especially when she has a curling iron or flat iron. If it is a nice day out and you are waiting on someone please try wandering around outside, pacing back and forth will make the beautician a bit nervous, and if you want to watch him/her work putting on a conversation instead of blankly staring is awesome. ( this applys to people waiting on others or waiting for there turn, though if your waiting for your turn in the chair try to stay in the building)
If you pick up a magazine or book to read , try to return it to where you found it if possible before you leave , it helps keep the place clean an organized and its one less thing for the beautician to worry about.
Please don't bring your pets into the shop unless you are totally sure they won't bite, jump, chew or pee on anything.
Bringing your Hairstylist lunch or food in general is a really sweet gesture and is always appreciated.
Even though your in a salon, which is normally seen on tv, in movies, and in books as the hub for gossip, most salon owners and other customers hate it so please not to gossip in the shop.
Please don't freak your kid out before bringing them to get there hair done, and if sugar intake could be at a minimum that would be great too, an we have no idea who told everyone that the salon chairs were merry go rounds but whoever that person was ,we think he should be shot. The amount of problems we have had due to chairs being spun too fast or jumped into is innumerable.
If you have huge earrings in and want anything done to your hair , please take them out.
Some beauticians don't like it when you start taking your own curlers out, mainly because it makes them feel like they are falling behind.
For the love of God don't move the chairs, if it looks big and has leavers on it, it probably is not meant to be moved around the room, so don't even try you might break it ..or yourself.
Beautician's need vacations too so STOP haggling them when they try to reschedule you so they can take one!
Have you ever thought of how your hairstylist listens to all your problems, now picture doing that 20 times a day, with 20 different people, every day that they come into work... Sometimes a beautician, just needs another beautician so that someone can listen to them for a change.
Though oddly it is kinda hard for a beautician to find another beautician to do there hair.
Messing with the TV in the salon is generally frowned upon , try asking for the channel to be changed instead , mainly because the tv remote is odd and you have to know how to use it.
You want your hair done HOW!?!?!, a picture is worth a thousand words, and a picture of the back and front help tremendously.
There are some things that you see in magazines that if you have them done to your hair all at once ...well you won't end up looking like the picture at all. Too much processing will make your hair look like crap regardless of how good your beautician is.
Ok are you trying to make your hair stay in place or mummify it? Too much hairspray is bad for your hair , I have seen this mainly happen with older Ladies. My mom will have there hair looking great when they leave but when they come back she describes there hair as being stiff as a board, to the point it takes multiple washings to get all the gunk out. YUCK! ...And then the lady ask why her scalp itches....
Its not always your beauticians fault. Yes you may leave the salon looking amazing but depending on how you treat your hair once you leave is usually the determining factor as to how your hair looks later on. An example would be a Lady gets her hair done at the shop, thinks it looks amazing and then when she goes home she brushes it half to death and the next day calls to report into my mom that the perm did not hold as well as she had hoped.
If you order a product from your beautician please come and pick it up, she/he had to pay for that out of pocket so its really annoying when people order something and just never come and get it.
The point being that your Beautician, Hair Stylist, Hair dresser has to put up with a lot of crap so you should really treat them with the utmost kindness, you have no idea what someone else has done to them earlier that day, so a little kindness can go along way. Oh and a lot of the things I wrote about above , things that people should try not to do in a salon, well I have witnessed a lot of those things happening first hand and they really baffle me at times. I guess sometimes people just don't think. I hope after reading this you will take a moment to think before you act when you are getting your hair done , that you might smile at the one doing your hair, tell them thank you, or even give them a hug.
