La Nouvelle Beauty Salon

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OPEN NOW - Closes at 5:00pm

When a hairdresser suggests you don't know your name, her rating drops to 'I would not recommend'...period.



My experience was LESS than favorable. First questionable incident: It took the owners' assistant 20 minutes! to apply the color. I asked how long she planned to allow the color to sit; her response was 40 minutes. Since the color had already been on the front section of my hair 15 minutes, I aksed if she planned to incorporate that time. I'm African-American. The weakest point for most african-american women's hair is the front edge of the hairline. She said it has to stay that long to cover the grey, and left for lunch...!! I was surprised...but also knew enough that if I began to experience any burning or tingling I would wash it out myself.



When she returned from lunch she rinsed and dried my hair and sent me "directly" to the owner's styling chair. NOT A HINT OF A CONDITIONER (La Nouvelle's sight boast a courtesty $27 conditioner with each treatment). My level of trust declined and I probably should have walked out at that moment, but would be leaving there to conduct business so no way could I leave with wet, undone hair. And, I was referred by a friend who's opinion I trust, so my thought was to go the distance.



The owner and head stylist began to apply something to my damp hair, claiming it was a concogtion of a heat spray and mixture of jojoba oils & natural ingredients; she sprayed the jojoba ingredient on my arm and rubbed it in. Her explanation seemed reasonable so I sat through the completion of the styling, NOT KNOWING she was using hair spray and the curling iron simultaneously to capture the hold; a No, No for kinky and/or curly hair--It leaves my african-american hair dry, brittle and stiff and promotes breakage! I woke up the next morning in a panic with this stiff, brittle, dry hair already showing breakage at the hairline, and a 9:00am, 12:30pm and 5:00pm appointments awaiting me. All I could think was, if she's so accustomed to doing african-american hair, how the HELL could she think it would be OK to complete my style with No Conditioner, and a ton of hairspray locked in with the heat of a curling iron! The color and the cut on a scale of 1 to 10, was a 5.5--just above average--I knew I would not be returning.



Already late to my 9:00am I called the owner and left a message with her assistant I was not satisfied...I did not feel I'd just invested $144 into a favorable experience.



The owner returned my call in the midst of my 9:00am meeting & suggested without asking if the time would be OK or not for my schedule, that "I will call you back at the end of 'my' work day..." This was all about her time.



My 12:30 was in their area so I decided to stop by the salon, to return the alchol filled samples given to me; another huge no-no for kinky or curly hair and to allow Susannah to see for herself the condition of my hair--maybe a 60 second conversation. I arrived & suggested to the receptionist that if Susannah was busy I'd be happy to leave a note. The receptionist said "No, I'll go get her for you...please have a seat". So I did.



Susannah was curt and immediately accused me of being confrontational and interrupting her business...I'd just suggested to the receptionist I'd be happy to leave a note. I didn't expect it and she offered no resolution other than I should return to my old hair dresser, and continued to refer to me as "Julie"--I Love my name--it is not "Julie". I do not shorten or reconstruct it; it's derived from my family ancestory and I always point out the correct pronunciation. I did so with Susannah who said...'do you know you wrote it down that way...it's written down that way' My thought at that point was, OK...clearly here's a business woman headed for psycho, focused on being right no matter what--Even at the cost of telling a customer, 'you don't know your name.'