Guide

Questions Worth Asking Before You Book a Salon Appointment

You are allowed to interview the person who is about to change your hair.

A category built on finished photographs makes it hard to judge anything in advance. Photographs show endings. The useful questions are about beginnings, process, and what happens when something does not go to plan.

Ask to see work that started where you are starting

This is the single most useful question. A gallery of pale blonde results tells you nothing unless you know what those heads of hair looked like beforehand. Ask for work on hair that began at your starting point — that is the comparison that applies to you.

Ask what they do most

Cutting texture, lightening, correction and extension work are separate skills, and few people are equally deep in all of them. Asking what someone works on every week is a fair question and the answer routes you correctly.

Ask what the maintenance schedule is

Every service commits you to something: a return interval, a home routine, a product you have to keep using. Knowing that before you book means you are choosing the upkeep as well as the look.

Ask what happens if it does not go to plan

Color can land differently than expected, and hair can behave unpredictably. What matters is what the plan is when that happens — whether you come back, what that involves, and how it is handled. Ask before, not after.

Ask what they would not recommend for your hair

The answer tells you a great deal. Someone who can name what will not work on your hair, and why, is thinking about your hair. Someone who says everything is possible is thinking about the booking.

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