My friend is a hairdresser by trade and works at a very upscale salon. I go to her myself and can attest to her being amazing. This salon has one customer who had been passed around from hairdresser to hairdresser, bullying every single one she sees. This woman is an absolute terror and has made three, count em’ THREE, separate hairdressers cry. The only reason she is still a client of the salon is that her mom is friends with the owner.
She is relatively young, maybe in her mid-twenties, with very long bottle-blonde hair (past her waist) that she insists to everyone who isn’t her hairdresser is her natural color (it is very much not). She goes to the salon religiously so no one will ever find out her secret shame. She blames her hairdresser for all her hair problems (many of which are the results of heavy bleaching, how much heat she uses on her hair, and her refusal to follow care instructions) and is never satisfied with anything.
For health reasons, everything shuts down in our state. They get a phone call as they’re closing up.
Customer: *Screaming* “You need to come and do my hair! My boyfriend can’t find out I’m not a natural blonde!”
Friend: “I’m afraid until the state allows us to re-open, I can’t—”
Customer: “You will lose your job!”
My friend refuses and despite the customer’s threats, she knows that the salon owner knows she’s too good at her job and has too loyal a customer base to fire her, so she thinks no more of it.
A few months later, when the salon reopens, lo and behold, who should appear in the appointment book! The day arrives and she shows up with her hair dyed JET BLACK (and not very well, either). My friend is shocked because this customer has always made such a big deal about being a blonde and how even though she gets her hair bleached she really is a natural blonde and just “enhancing her color a little.”
Friend: “So, what are we doing today?”
Customer: *Demanding* “You’re making me blonde again.”
Friend: “Uh, okay, that’s going to be a process. Getting dyed dark hair to blonde is usually something done in stages, so the hair has a chance to recover a bit between bleaching sessions to avoid breakage.”
Also, she has used black box dye, which is really hard to get out.
Customer: “No! I am going to be blonde when I leave here today or I am telling your boss that you see clients at home sometimes and getting you fired!”
My friend sometimes does a friend’s hair at home for a lower price because she’s a sweetheart, which her boss is fine with.
Customer: “It’s your fault I had to dye my own hair this color because my boyfriend would have SEEN MY ROOTS if I hadn’t done something!”
My friend is tired of her BS at this point but it’s a slow day, and she has time.
Friend: “If we make you blonde all in one go, your hair will be fried, and you’ll likely end up having to lose a lot of length.”
Customer: *Scoffing and rolling her eyes* “That’s never happened before, and my hair’s so healthy, I’m sure it will be fine if you don’t screw it up.”
Friend: “Then I recommend at least using [Product that helps prevent damage].”
Customer: “That’s a scam. You’re just trying to overcharge customers. I won’t pay for it.”
Friend: “Okay, but I am making sure several of my coworkers be witnesses that this is what you’re asking for.”
After that, my friend goes through the whole process of bleaching the customer’s hair. She has to do it several times, and she checks with her after each one that she’s absolutely sure she has to be all the way back to champagne blonde by the end of the day. She recommends stopping at some of the nice auburn or strawberry blonde shades in between for now, but the customer insists:
Customer: “My boyfriend hates my hair anything but my ‘natural’ blonde.”
With each bleaching, there’s more breakage and the hair feels worse. My friend knows the hair won’t survive this, but the customer absolutely refuses to let her stop. Eventually, at long last, my friend manages to get the customer’s hair to the required level, and so she starts to rinse it.
It starts breaking off in her hand; the length of her hair is melted, fried, and destroyed. My friend gets the bleach out and immediately conditions the ever-loving f*** out of it while explaining that exactly what she said would happen has happened.
Customer: “You must be exaggerating. I’m sure it’s fine.”
My friend wraps what’s left of the woman’s hair in a towel and takes her back over to her station where she shows her the problem; everything past a little beyond chin length is pretty much gone.
Customer: *Shrieks* “You incompetent b****! You must be operating without a license! This is a personal attack against me! You have a vendetta!”
My friend eventually calms her down.
Friend: “I’ll do my best to cut it so it looks decent for free.”
She even has the PERFECT cut in mind. It’ll suit this woman who likes to complain and “ask for the manager” perfectly.
My friend gives this customer the sharpest, most beautifully cut angled bob you’ve ever seen, blown out and styled to perfection. The customer starts crying because the cut makes her look forty.
She… wants to speak to the manager.
My friend gets the manager and the customer throws a fit.
Customer: “I’m going to sue! How dare you?! You did this to mock me!”
The boss then asked my friend for her side of the story. The other hairdressers backed her up and said that the cut was just her trying to make the best of what was left of the customer’s hair. Even the boss was sick of this customer by now, and she was forced to pay the huge sum of money owed for how much time was spent bleaching her hair (much of which was now gone) and left, swearing never to come back.
Her boyfriend (a cop) called up later and threatened to assault my friend for doing that to her hair “against his wishes,” and my friend told him if he tried anything, she was going to tell his superiors and every news agency in the city. Nothing further happened.
This customer’s behavior cannot be attributed to her boyfriend’s influence; she was like that long before they got together. She had been going to that salon since she was a teenager (the older stylists who’d been there a while told my friend stories of her antics) and had always been a terror.
