 Hey guys, welcome back to my channel, or welcome if you're new. And welcome back to Vlogmas. I don't even know what number this is now. So today instead of a vlog, I'm gonna share a client horror story, because by the time you're watching this video, I will be driving 10 hours from North Carolina to Pennsylvania, so gonna share a story instead. So this isn't like anything super crazy, it's just like one of the most recent things that happened to me that I just thought was kind of entertaining. One of my coworkers was going to be away on vacation, and one of her regular clients, who has been going to her for years, was about to also be out of town for like several months straight. So she came in, went to my coworker, you know her usual stylist, got her hair done, but she wanted to come back two weeks later, like a day before she was about to leave, because she wanted her hair to be as fresh as possible, since it was gonna be a while before she could come in for her next appointment. Cause she's one of those people that normally likes to come in like every, I don't know, six weeks or so. What she normally gets is a single process, so like permanent color on her roots, cause she does have gray. So she gets her grays covered with a permanent color, and then she also gets highlights throughout, and then a haircut. She has very short hair, the back is like shaved, and then it's short, kinda like the Karen cut, still short in the front, but like longer than the back, and then the back is like very, very tight short. So anyway, the appointment right before she was about to be gone, she couldn't go to her usual girl because my coworker, like I said, was about to be out of town. Let's give her a fake name for the sake of the story. Let's call her Jessica. So my coworker's trying to figure out who's gonna be able to shake Jessica because here's the thing. Jessica has been coming to the salon for years, but she is very particular. She's very particular with her hair. It's really hard to get it right. And even though she's been going to my coworker for so long and keeps coming back to her, but like even sometimes she gives her a hard time. Like there have been times where she had a total meltdown and freaked out on my coworker and like hated her hair, but then ended up loving it. I don't know. She's just one of those kinds of clients. Like she can be kind of unpredictable and she just has a really big personality. And I've heard about this client over time, but I never really had like experience with her myself. So I was like, I'll take this client, I'll do her hair because worst case scenario, I get a video out of it. And plus I'm like, okay, she just got her hair. She got all of those things just done two weeks ago. So I'm like, I'm gonna barely have to do anything to her hair, but she wants to come in and pay full price anyway. That's fine. I'll make the extra money. Plus her hair is really short. So I know it like it's not gonna take me very long to do, but my coworker was a little bit nervous about the haircut part because like I said, this client is really particular. And the haircut specifically was something that took a while for them to get perfect. There's been issues when it comes to the haircut. It's been a whole journey. So I was like, yeah, you know, like I'm confident in my cutting skills, but I don't want to mess with that. Like you just cut it two weeks ago. I'm sure it's fine. So like tell her I'll do her color, but like let's not mess with the cut then. So my coworker told Jessica, okay, I'm gonna book you with Sam since I'm not gonna be in town, but she's great. She'll take good care of you. She has your formula. You guys are just gonna do the color though because I feel like your haircut will be good. She also booked a facial appointment right after her hair appointment for that same day. So anyway, Jessica comes in for the day of her appointment and immediately big personality. We do a quick little consultation and I'm like, well, you're happy with how your usual girl does everything, right? Like you're not looking to do anything different. We're just making sure that it's as fresh as possible before you leave. Yes, great, okay. So I mix up her root color. My coworker, she keeps like old school index cards with all of her clients and all of her formulas and she dates everything. And if she ever makes any changes, she updates the card. And she knew I was gonna be doing Jessica's hair. So she confirmed like, yes, what's on the card is up to date. And she includes also like the specific ratio too. So, you know, if it's like one quarter of this color plus half of this color and a quarter of this, like it's foolproof. So I pull out her card. I mix up the exact formula. I do her highlights. I just followed the same pattern that I could see my coworker was doing, applied the root color in between and everything seemed good. Everything was going fine. While her hair was processing, she like is one of those people that she can't sit still, which is fine. I mean, I get it. So she was just like off wandering around in the salon. Come time to rinse her color out. I cannot find her anywhere. I'm looking all around the salon because it's a pretty big, it's a salon and spa. So we have like a whole separate spa section. I'm looking all around, can't find her. I'm looking outside for her. So finally I find her, rinse the color out and my coworker didn't have a toner formula written down on Jessica's card. So I wasn't sure if she does a toner on her or if she, cause her hair lightened really beautifully. And I mean, granted, like I just had to touch up like this much of the highlights, you know? The rest of it was just done two weeks ago. So it's still very, very fresh. So I'm like, it doesn't look like she gets a toner based on what her hair looks like when she first came in, based on the index card. So I think I just did purple shampoo and maybe I did, I think I did actually do a toner, but I just didn't do anything too dark or too ashy and I didn't leave it on for a long time. You know, I didn't want the highlights to be too dark or too ashy, plus we covered her gray roots. It's not like we were doing gray blending. She gets permanent color to cover her roots and then puts highlights in between. So I'm not gonna tone her highlights to like a silvery color because then that defeats the purpose of covering the gray in the first place. You know what I mean? Everything seemed to be going really, really well up until this point. And I was like, I don't understand why nobody else really wanted to deal with doing her hair. I don't get why. Like she seems fine. She's great. We go back over to my station. I'm about to start blow-drying her. She asks me if I can cut her hair. Please, please, can you cut it? I know I wasn't down for a cut, but could you just like just clean up the back? Like just shave it really quick because I just don't want to feel anything touching my neck and I know because I'm gonna be gone for three months, my hair is gonna grow out and I just don't want it to. Like I want it to be as short as possible right before I leave. I was like, well, you're right. Technically you weren't down for a cut, but we do have a little bit of time since her hair is short. You know, it's not gonna take me super long at all to blow-dry. So I was like, we do have a few extra minutes before your facial. So I think that if that's what you want, I'm okay with that. We have time to do it still. And plus I'm like, well, if she is insisting on a haircut and I have the time to do it, why not do it? You know, it's extra money in my pocket. So yeah, sure. Now I can't just section out the front, buzz the back really quick and then that's it, leave it good to go. Like I have to blend it because I want the haircut to look good. If you're gonna have super short hair in the back and then it's longer in the front, there needs to be a transition in the middle. You know what I mean? It needs to all blend and make sense. So I did clippers in the back and I just followed what she already had. Then I took the trimmers, cleaned up her neckline. Then I took my regular shears and I was cutting to blend to make sure that there was like a nice, like it layered all nicely. Then I took my texturizing shears to make sure that everything was blended and really soft. I used four different tools to do this haircut. And yeah, it, I guess only took me about 10 minutes or so to do it all. And I didn't touch the front because she said she was happy with the length of the front. She was just concerned about the back. Totally fine. But again, in order for me to cut the back, it's not just a quick one step thing. I need to blend it all together. So I do that. She looks at it, feels it. She's happy, great. And I felt such a relief because knowing that the haircut, like I said, was like a big point of contention for her. I was like, nice. I nailed the cut. I start blow drying the front. She's saying that the highlights don't look ashy enough for her. She likes them to be really, really cool toned because her hair gets warm really fast. And she was like, I mean, it looks great. Like I love how it looks right now, but I just know my hair and especially because I'm gonna be out in the sun a lot. So I really just want them to be toned like super, super ashy and cool. So that way, as it lightens up, I want it to look like this in a few weeks. And then she was going on about how she can't use purple shampoo because I don't wanna get into too much detail because I don't, I'm trying to keep this anonymous. But because of what she does for work and where she's going to be during her time out of town, she can't use purple shampoo because it's gonna stain the shower, which doesn't make any sense. It's not true, weird, I don't know. But yeah, this whole rant about how, yeah, she can't use purple shampoo. So her hair is going to get really warm. So she needs it to be really ashy now. Which like, okay, sure, fair enough. I should have discussed that with her, I guess. I just didn't even think, if she was my client and coming to me for the first time and I wasn't just helping out my coworker and doing a very recent touch up, I would have been more thorough and I would have asked her like, okay, well, do you like the tone of blonde you have now or are you looking to change it at all? Although I did ask her, I was like, are you happy with the way your highlights look right now? She said yes. Anyway, I was like, okay, no problem. I can do the toner again and I can tone them more ashy and silver for you if that's what you want. Again, it felt counterintuitive because it's like, why are we covering your grays then? But whatever, shampoo the toner out, bring her back to the chair. At this point, we should be done, right? Because I've re-toned her highlights now, we did the haircut already. All I gotta do is blow dry her quick and she's done. So I blow dry her hair, she's looking at it, holding up the mirror, looking really, really close. And then she starts telling me the root color just looks different. Like I feel like it just looks like brassier than normal. Excuse me, are you kidding me? First of all, your roots were like a centimeter long. It's been two weeks since you last got it done. You didn't have that much root. So whatever you're looking at is what you already had before I touched your head. Also, I did the exact formula. Same exact ratio, same exact color that you always get, that your usual stylist does on you. So I told her all that. And I also said, well, now that you had me tone your highlights so ashy, anything next to it is going to look warmer in comparison. That's just like how color works. Like if you're wearing a shirt, that's technically like an off-white egg shell kind of color. And you hold it next to a bright white, pure white shirt, the off-white is gonna look really dingy and yellowy. But now if you were to hold that same shirt next to a black shirt, it's gonna look like a pure bright white. That's just the way it works. What you're seeing is also determined by what it's contrasting against. So I'm like, I assure you, I did your exact same normal color that you always get. I pulled up your note card. I can show it to you if you want. It's the exact same color, I promise. She's still messing with it. She's like, oh, okay. And then she was super nice at the end. She was like, I really appreciate you squeezing me in. Thank you so much. She's in the back getting her facial. I clean up. I made sure to update the front desk and let them know that we ended up doing a haircut as well. I leave before her facial finishes. The next day I come into work and I find out that Jessica paid for her appointment, you know, paid for the full thing, went home, all was good. But then either like the next morning or a few hours later, she called the salon back and asked for a partial refund because she claimed that she shouldn't have paid for the haircut since I just buzzed the back really quick, buzzed the back really quick and I didn't really technically do a full haircut on her. So she didn't think that she should have had to pay anything for that. Mind you, at the salon where I work, for certain color services, if you're getting a haircut at the same time, you get like a bundled package price. So you're not paying the same full price for a haircut. To add on a cut, it actually ends up being like a third of the price. And I originally wasn't gonna do a haircut at all. I didn't really want to because I was a little bit concerned about how it was gonna go knowing like the history. She asked if I could do it. I told her, yes, I have the time. I will do it for you. And I used four different tools. If I was just cleaning up her neckline and just taking like the trimmers and just cleaning like the little stubble around the perimeter, I wouldn't have added the haircut on. I wouldn't have charged anything for that because that literally takes two seconds and it's not a big deal. But what I did, it takes skill. It's not like that's something that anybody could have done or that she could have done herself at home or had her friend do for her. Sorry, my battery died. But yeah, so she was trying to get the haircut refunded not because she was unhappy with it. And she said that. She was like, oh, I'm happy with my hair. It looks great. But I just don't feel like I should have to pay for the cut. Like I was trying to help you out, Jessica. Because nobody else wanted to do your hair. So if I didn't volunteer to do it, you would have been shit out of luck. And even though it was supposed to just be like a shorter, easier appointment because she was just there a couple of weeks ago, it still ended up taking longer than the full amount of time because I had to go hunting for her while her hair was processing. Then I had to tone her twice. I had to explain to her about the root color. I had to do the haircut. And then you're trying to not pay. And the thing is, she knew. Like she was volunteering to come in two weeks after her last appointment. She knew that it was very soon and she wasn't gonna be necessarily due for anything. But she wanted to come in. And she wanted, we were originally trying to say, like, oh, well, you probably don't need your highlights. Like if you wanna just do the permanent color, just to tap on like the tiny little bit of grow out, let's just do that and not do the highlights. But she was insistent that she wanted the works. She wanted it all. She knew it was gonna cost full price because that's just the way that they do things where I work now. That's just the policy. That's the way they charge there. She's been going there for years. She knows that. She was aware of how much everything was gonna cost. She requested it. Like I'm sorry, I'm not gonna do work for free. Like especially you're not my friend, you're not my family member. I don't know you. You're not even my usual client. So why should I do you any favors? If I'm gonna do this work that you're asking for, then you're gonna pay for it. In the end, it ended up being fine. I got paid my full amount for the work that I did and I didn't hear any complaints after that. And I haven't seen her or had to deal with her. And I mean, she's fine. Like I wouldn't mind doing her hair again, honestly. But it was just one of those appointments where I was like, okay, I'm ready for this to be done now. So yeah, that's my Jessica story. Let me know down in the comments, what do you think? Cause I know that that's like a hot debate in the hair world. Like what's the difference between a full haircut and a trim and are they the same thing or should you charge differently for them? Do you think that Jessica was right? Should she not have been charged for a haircut? Let me know. But that is gonna be it for this video. Thank you guys so much for watching. I will see you tomorrow with a new hair tutorial and in two days for another vlog. Bye.