Consultation Confessional – the truth is always best!

by Carrie Robinson | Aug 4, 2020 | Just for Salon Clients!

Are you guilty of leaving a little something left unsaid during your consultation? A little at home craftiness or perhaps a visit with a different Stylist? 🤔

Your consultation is where a Stylist learns everything they need to know about your hair. We call this ‘hair history’. Think of it like your hair’s life story – exactly what your hair would say if it was spilling the T ☕️

Your very first consultation with a new Hairstylist should be DETAILED 💯. Questions which may seem almost silly to you, can hold very valuable information for us that we need to anticipate how your hair will react during your service. Even for returning clients, your subsequent consultations (yes – there should always be one) will contain lots of questions on your experience with your hair since we last saw you.

So when a Hairstylist asks you ‘Is there any hair colour on your hair right now?’ or ‘Have you had hair colour since you were last here?’ and you answer ‘NO’, there’s a few different ways this can all play out……

Scenario 1:

There really is no hair colour nor has there ever been hair colour on your hair. Congratulations! 🎉 You are officially a Hairstylist’s dream client and have won the ‘We can make your hair ANY colour you want!’ Prize. Seriously – you are a catch! A hair colour virgin! We’ve heard of you but until now thought you were a rare mythical creature only seen in our hair colour dreams!! Yes, we are excited 😂

Scenario 2:

There is no hair colour left in your hair because it’s all ‘faded out’ – and anyway that was 6 months ago. Those highlights that you covered up with said colour – you can’t see those anymore either. What difference would it make now?

Considering the conversation you’ve just had with yourself, you answer ‘NO’. Now visually this may be true – you aren’t ‘lying’. You just can’t see the colour anymore so what’s the big deal?

Red Flag! 🚩 Or in your Hairstylist’s case, white flag! 🏳 🙈

Let’s say you are asking your Hairstylist to put some highlights in your hair. After sitting forever to have all the foils put in your Stylist comes back to check if you are ready to rinse and oddly asks you ‘Are you sure there isn’t any hair colour on your hair?’.

Want to know why we ask this? Staring back at us from that open foil is the exact line where your new blonde goes from beautiful and light (on your natural hair) to orangey and dark (where that ‘faded out’ old hair colour is). Oh and then look there where it goes from beautiful and light to white and shredding exaclty where those old highlights were 😢 We could have formulated for this – had we only known……

Scenario 3:

You want to confess but are afraid to hurt our feelings. Or maybe you are embarrassed about experimenting (side note: we’ve alllllll experimented 😂 ) or simply just don’t want to have what you anticipate being an awkward conversation 🤷🏼‍♀️. So in response to our question about any recent hair colour, you go ahead answer ‘NO’.

Red Flag! 🚩 Or in your Hairstylist’s case, white flag! 🏳. 🙈

See the results from Scenario 2. They apply here as well.

Let me fill you in on a little secret 🤫. There are very, very few cases where we look at the hair during consultation and can’t tell whether it has been previously coloured or not. But as in the scenarios above when we ask ‘Is there any hair colour on your hair?’ and you say ‘NO’, we believe you and formulate accordingly.

The hair history you give us at the beginning of your appointment helps us get you the hair colour you want. If we have all the information (no matter what you really wish was better left unsaid) we can anticipate problems and account for them. We can realistically tell you what will happen, considering your hair history, and exactly what your options are to get you to where you want to go.

Moral of the story? Don’t be afraid! Spill your heart out in the consultation. Tell us every single, little tiny thing you’ve ever done, or had done to your hair! Have long hair? Get comfy – that’s a good 3 to 4 years of story telling you have ahead of you.

Just spill it sister ☕️ We’ll just be here listening and taking notes!

Thanks for listening,

Carrie

www.cihairstudio.ca

How to Choose a Hairstylist Part 4 – Time for an Interview

by Carrie Robinson | Jun 11, 2020 | Just for Salon Clients!

You’re armed with your inspo pictures, you’ve window shopped, done your online sleuthing and you’ve found some Stylists and Salons that have sparked your interest.

The next step is to schedule an interview. Yes, an interview!

What you were really doing while window shopping is looking at a resumes. Between Facebook, Instagram and a website you’ve got a good feel for the Salon vibe and standards, been able to read a biography of a Stylist (or two!), discovered their education and training, and maybe even read a little diddy on their outside interests and hobbies. Kind of sounds like what you’d read on a resume, doesn’t it?

While many, many clients choose to skip this step, I really, really recommend you don’t.

Interview ALL your potential Hairstylists. In Hairstylist terms this is called a Consultation but for you it’s nothing more than an interview. I highly suggest you meet more than one candidate before filling the position and here’s why…….

Things can be made to look shiny and magical online but at a consultation, there can be no smoke or mirrors. It’s just you and the Stylist, in the Salon, talking about what they have to offer you.

Here are some questions you’ll want to know the answers to after your ‘Interviews’:

✔ Who did you immediately feel comfortable with? Intuition is an amazing thing

✔ Who gave you their full, undivided attention and stopped talking long enough to listen to everything you were requesting?

✔ Who asked questions? Thoughtful ones, focused entirely on you

✔ Who said ‘No’? Don’t take this one the wrong way but don’t you want someone you can trust? Someone willing to tell you why a different option would be more complimentary for you or to let you know your hair could really use a break from colour and needs some tlc? You want a professional. Professionals take their responsibility to you seriously even if that means recommending a lesser service because their job is to get you the best result possible.

✔ Who surprised you? Who did you learn something from that you didn’t know before?

✔ Who would you have to wait to get an appointment with? This one is twofold. The longer you have to wait to get your service done the more people there are that already love that Stylist’s work. This one will either be a positive or a negative for you but since this is about you and your perfect Stylist, you get to decide!

✔ Who made pricing part of the consultation? You have to see the value in the cost of the services. Again, this is something that only you can decide but you are going to need to know the price before you’ll know if it seems reasonable to you based on your experience so far. So much more about this topic in Part 5!!

✔ Who did you just genuinely enjoy talking and being with? This matters! If you are putting the effort in to find your perfect Stylist I’ll guarantee you’ll want to choose them for all your future services too. Wouldn’t it be nicer to do that with someone you actually like, in the environment where you feel most comfortable?

The key here is to gather the same information from all the Stylist’s you interview. You’ll have enough information for a comparison so you can then make an informed decision. Informed decisions get the best results!

I’ll be back soon with a deep dive into the rabbit hole of salon pricing. You do NOT want to miss it! 😉