The Nine Biggest Salon Sinners

With their shiny porcelain sinks, sleek styling stations, and perfectly coiffed employees, salons can feel like a den of perfection and tranquility in a harried, hostile, less-than-perfect world. But the business of good hair has its side of unruly customers and unpleasant outbursts, making for a less-than-ideal experience. From clients blabbing on cell phones the details of their tricky divorce settlements to others who decide it's a perfect time to take a pass out in their chair, we collected some of the most egregious salon offenses. Here are nine of the worst offenders—proving that salon etiquette doesn't end with simply showing up on time.

 

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Complete Coverage

 

The Blue-Blood Bum
It's a given that most people go into hair appointments expecting to come out looking better than when they went in. A regular client at Michigan's Edwin Paul Salon often takes this approach a little too far. "For years this one guy would come in for his 10 a.m. appointment in the dead of winter wearing pj bottoms, slippers with no socks, unshaven, holding a 16-ounce glass filled with vodka," said salon owner Edwin Paul. "It was kind of like dealing with Robert Downey Jr. back during his rough years when they'd find him wandering alleys. People probably saw him and thought he was homeless, but he was a total blue blood."

The Classless Client
A senior stylist at Chicago's Rogue Salon has taken her share of catty clients over the years, but one woman stands out as the worst. "She would hop from stylist to stylist and say very personally demeaning things very loudly about each one. One day, she actually asked if my assistant was a boy or a girl—but she said it in front of my female assistant," Elaine said. "She was horrible."

The Clueless Client
When a first-time client came into Ankeny, Iowa's upscale Anani Salon and Spa hoping for a fresh look and a new start, owner Abbey was happy to help her out. While having her hair styled, the client confessed that she was trying to get her life back on track after years of addiction and a "deadbeat" relationship. What she didn't realize was that a relative of her ex was sitting two seats down. A heated catfight ensued. Abbey thought she had seen the worst of it until two weeks later when the ex-boyfriend's sister came back to tell Abbey the girl had been "taken care of." "I have no idea what that means," Abbey said, "but we never saw her again."

The Very, Very Bad Drunk
According to David, the owner of Boulder, Colo.'s Chicago Hair Salon, there's more than one way to get out of paying for a dye job. Late one evening a half-dressed man stumbled into his salon, requesting a color appointment. Not wanting to discriminate against any potential clients, the salon sat the gentleman down and started the process. Halfway through, the client decided to go out for a cigarette. "It must have been the cigarette that took him over the edge," David said, "Either that, or he went out for another drink." When he came back, he stumbled, swayed, and eventually passed out. The salon called 911. Unfortunately, the client's hair was still covered in color processing. When the medics arrived, the ER team hoisted him on a stretcher, then lifted him over to the shampoo bowls for the stylists to finish rinsing the color from his new 'do. The customer survived, but "we never did get paid for the color," David said.

The Exhibitionist
Apparently, desperate housewives aren't confined to major cities and TV shows. In Grosse Pointe, Mich., "you've got this little pocket of extreme wealth pulling up in their $150,000 car and then getting upset because their eyebrow wax costs a dollar more than they thought it should," Edwin Paul says of a specific client base at his salon. "We also have ladies coming in here in these tiny little tennis outfits that kill me. One day one of them fell asleep under the dryer in her micro-mini skirt with nothing underneath, leaving nothing to the imagination. All I could ask myself was, 'should I go over there and wake her up, or just wait for her color to finish setting?' "