16 Beauty Procedures That Didn’t Go as Planned

Beauty salons can be a rich source of epic stories. And they don’t always happen in new places. Sometimes the stylist you have been attending for many years can surprise you too. The heroines of this article have learned this from their own experience.

• I was in a hair salon. A woman in her forties was sitting in the neighboring chair. They cut our hair, and she stares in my direction and keeps saying, “Oh, poor girl, such thin hair!” She keeps saying it again and again.
  At some point, I couldn’t stand it anymore, turned to her and said, “I was born this way, not with a horse’s mane, so what? Should I shave my head and become a nun? You should educate yourself and have some sense of tact. Oh, poor woman, so old and so ill-mannered.”
  The whole salon fell silent, and this lady didn’t utter a word either. But when I was leaving, I heard her whispering excuses, “What did I say? Young people are so nervous nowadays.” © virtualtourist
• The last time I tried to get a perm... I didn’t. I had sort of short hair, and wanted it to look like my friend’s hair, who was naturally curly (first mistake). I told her what size curls I wanted, picked out the roller size that would make them, and the clearly inexperienced “stylist” (second mistake) said she didn’t think my hair could “do that roller size” and wanted to use a teeny tiny roller size.
  I’d had the teeny tiny size done before and hated the results, so I said no, to use the larger ones. She finally agreed and started rolling. An hour later (she kept messing up and having to re-roll them) she puts on the chemicals and walks away. 5 minutes later, she returns and rinses it off, taking the curlers out.
  I’d had about 3 perms in my life previous to this, so I knew that was too soon. She combs out and dries my hair, and it’s fried. And no surprise, there’s no curl. She’s all, “told you those wouldn’t work,” and starts flat ironing my hair. © tattooedBetty / Reddit

• I had a strange situation. My hair is naturally very straight, I am always growing it out and taking care of it accordingly. Although they are thin, they are very shiny, soft and beautiful. And here I am standing in the hairdresser’s salon, I’m about to leave, and another stylist stops me.
  There is a client next to her, a girl of about 13 years old with long, unkept hair. She says, “Look at this lady’s hair (I wasn’t even 30 years old then). She’s the one who should have hair like yours. Why don’t you take care of yours?”
  I left and never went there again. And even now, I don’t know what I should have said then. © bumdigibuy
• I was getting my makeup done. When the artist moved on to the lips, she said, “You have such a good blush tattoo on your lips, let’s just apply transparent lipstick then, shall we?” I replied, “I don’t have a tattoo, my lips are just bright.” And she said, “Sure, sure! Mary, come here, take a look, she’s telling me that her lip color is natural!”
  Mary comes running, “Ha-ha, yes, sure! I also have natural fluffy eyelashes. Very funny.” I sat there and couldn’t understand what was going on. I was shocked, to be honest, I had never experienced anything like this before. So, I was sitting there and thinking: should I be proud or ashamed? © alena_skidki_ru

• Well, it’s hard to find anything wrong about my hair, but they did. I came to a salon once to have my bangs done. Eventually I got something I didn’t ask for, even though I showed a reference. When I tried to object, I was told that I know nothing and that now I look so much better. © kaktak_vopros
• The guy who straightened my very curly hair before cutting it, after I told him I didn’t even own a straightener or blow-dryer. He swore it would be easier to cut and still look good curly. I was 22 and did not stand up for myself. He was wrong. © Ubergaladababa / Reddit
• I got my hip length hair cut into a pixie cut, and my dad happened to drive me. I was in college at the time, but didn’t have a car. When I said what I wanted, the stylist straight up ignored me and tried to talk to my dad about it instead.
  My dad was like, “It’s not my hair, ask her,” and the stylist responded, “Yeah, but are you okay with this?” When we finally got over that sexist hurdle, the stylist made me sit there for 10 minutes to “think about what I was doing.” People get so serious about hair that isn’t even theirs. © iSharpie625 / Reddit
• I once asked for a pink strand and got a reply, “That’s only for the young, you and I are past that age.” © topilinart

• About 10 years ago, I went to a stylist. She dyed my hair in a swampy color, even though I asked for the chocolate one. And then she brought a mirror and said, “This greenish color suits you, it accentuates your complexion.” © tanja.tiits
• I usually get my brows waxed at the beauty school on campus because it’s cheap, but last year my mom and I went to a pretty fancy spa, so I decided to get them done there instead since I figured it would be better (even though I’d never run into problems in the past).
  Anyway, they both turned out to be so thin, I didn’t even want to ask them to fix it since they’d just have to take off more hair, probably leaving a bald spot. Luckily, it was in the winter, so I just wore hats/headbands to cover them as much as possible until they grew back. It also led me to start filling in my brows, which was life changing. © mayloveless / Reddit
• Following my relatives’ advice, I went to a salon for styling and makeup for the graduation prom. The stylist behaved weirdly from the start, she began to touch the buttons on my jacket and said to my parents, “I see you have an extraordinary girl.”
  Anyway, the result was terrible. My hair looked like a nest, and my makeup was something gothic and frumpy. The prom was about to start, and I didn’t know what to do, I almost cried. At home, I hastily washed everything off, combed my hair back, and did a new makeup in 15 minutes.
  And then my mom told me that the stylist had come up to her and said, “There are children who love their parents. And your daughter will never love you, don’t expect this from her.” Apparently, she was angry that I didn’t like the result. © grlbo

• A friend of mine went to a manicurist who always applied only milky pink nail polish to her nails. When she said she wanted a different color, the manicurist said, “Your nails are not pretty enough, another color won’t look good on them.” © lybania.m
• I haven’t been to the hairdresser’s for a few years now, but this time I went. I asked the stylist to trim my ends and offered to comb my hair myself first, because my hair is thick and curly. The stylist said firmly, “No, I’ll comb it myself.” And she started, without holding it, literally pulling it.
  I said, “Stop, stop, stop, stop, you should at least hold it, it hurts me, the hair is pulled out.” To which I had a super reply, “Hair should not be pulled out! And if it is pulled out, it means it is weak, the strong hair will stay!” I decided I’m not ready for this ordeal and just left. © Nina Kozir / Dzen
• I once was waiting for my appointment in a hair salon. It was the beginning of summer, the season of graduation proms. Suddenly, a woman came in with a tearful girl in a beautiful prom dress. And the girl’s hairdo was terrible, as if she was caught in the rain.
  It turns out that she had her hair done in a salon, and an hour later it all fell apart, curls untwisted and got hanging. They didn’t have time to return to that salon. And in our salon, all the stylists were busy. The girl and her mom almost fainted.
  I said to my stylist, “I’ll wait, take her.” She fixed it as best as she could, and the girl and her mother left without tears. © Veronica / ADME

• In my twenties, my hair was thick and long. I went to get my hair styled. One of the stylists praised it. And my stylist immediately replied, “Well, now she’s young. Surely, she has beautiful hair. Then she will dye it, burn it, and there will be nothing left.”
  But the other woman rebuked her so well, “Oh, well, that’s your excuse, right?” © rashida.krasnikova
• I was once told, “Oh, your nails are so small, just like children’s nails! I don’t like to work with such nails.” I replied, “Imagine you come to me for depilation, and I say to you, ’Your armpits are so hairy, I don’t like to work with such armpits.’” She immediately stopped commenting on her work. © o.kapustini

And here’s another bunch of remarkable stories from a beauty salon.