Do not go here if you’re queer or getting alternative hair/dye. Learn from my mistake.

I came in for an admittedly complicated dye job and had initially asked the owner over the phone if she was comfortable doing more complex alternative hairstyles- namely, raccoon strips. She emphasized that she had a ton of experience with alternative hair and the specific sorts of stripes I was asking for.

For some context upfront, I am transgender FTM, and I let her know this before the appointment. When I got there, I let her know that I had a headache and that I would prefer not to speak very much during the session. Despite this, she kept making comments such as “I’m the opposite of how you are, I’m very outgoing and energetic and friendly!” and “it’s strange that you would want to transition into being a man just to still date men,” and strangest of all continually bringing up concerns that I was possibly getting catfished by my long-distance fiance who I had referenced having Christmas plans with. Footnote, she also mentioned concerns about my blonde hair already being damaged. This is foreshadowing for later.

Having grown up here and being gay, I can more than withstand the social faux pas of clueless but well meaning lake county pseudo republican women. What I can’t stand as a gay man, is having my hair ruined. I’ve attached a picture of what my hair looked like after asking her for raccoon stripes. She tried to say that it looked like a “digital camo” pattern and that it somehow looked good when I was stunned at the results.

Afterwards, I was very hesitant to allow her to keep touching my hair, but she was very insistent that I let her fix it so that I leave happy. I told her that if we were going to be doing any more changes I would rather she just fully dye my hair black and forgo the stripes entirely. I had already been there long enough and at this point, I really wasn’t comfortable having her do anything else complex with my hair. In response to this, she pressured me into allowing her to fully rebleach my hair instead, further damaging it beyond what she had already observed when I first walked in.

I was there for five hours and repeatedly had bleach burning my scalp which I’ve never experienced to this degree before despite having had similar bleach jobs done several times. She tried to gaslight me by saying oh it’s normal to feel a little tingle as if I’d never had my roots bleached. I already have a relative degree of social anxiety and people pleasing tendencies so I allowed it to happen despite already having voiced my apprehension towards her doing this.

Ultimately, I came out of it looking worse than I did when I came in, but marginally better than I did when she tried to do my stripes the first time. At one point one of the other hairdressers commented that some people who leave reviews on their business needed to “learn to keep their mouths shut” which is strange because they don’t seem to have any bad reviews other than mine at least on google reviews. It makes me wonder if they previously received other negative reviews that they have since had removed, but I digress.

At the end of this, I was charged $240, which is three times the price might I add that I was charged from my previous hairdresser in Willits who actually got the style right and also did it without misgendering me every other sentence. She had the audacity to ask for a tip.

It’s honestly my fault for not vetting the place better before going, but my intention with writing this review is to prevent anybody else who’s either young and queer or just looking for a very alternative or somewhat complex hairstyle from going to this place. My main frustration is that my stylist who I believe is also the owner, is severely overconfident in her abilities and misrepresented the range of styles that she’d be in her element doing. I’m sure there’s a lot of blonde moms in lake county that will get the best haircut they’ve ever had there, but for me, this is bar none the worst salon experience I’ve ever had in my life.

Clean, very nice super nice people, plenty of parking