Grafin Blau Spa

I purchased the Groupon deal for a mani/​pedi, hot stone massage, and infrared sauna session. I wasn’t that blown away by the infrared sauna, but everything else was incredible. My appointment had to be changed slightly due to a sick nail tech and my mani/​pedi was split up, but I was offered a free upgrade to gel polish for the inconvenience (although I declined because the colors I wanted weren’t available in the gel). All parts of the service were outstanding, especially the massage with Karen. They offer the Groupon services as a package sold directly at the spa, and I am definitely considering going back for another round.

I experienced the owner as rude the first time I visited, which ruined the experience of a good cut. The owner was very conscious of money involved when it was my first time and I had gotten a service I hadn’t asked for, and she wanted to charge a great deal for this (the amount was significant — for something called ecure and cut — especially for a first time visit and no color involved, when the groupon had promoted less than half for cut and keratin, which is what I’d requested). It was a very embarrassing experience; salons rarely treat customers in that manner, for fear of reputation alone.
I braved it again 10 months later as I remember the cut was good. This time I asked for cut and toner. I came in with pretty blond hair that looked thick. The same stylist assured me the toner would be one shade darker and would wash out in 30 – 40 washes. What resulted was significantly darker and orange/​red. Three stylists kept repeating over and over how they liked it, which is a bad sign of things to come. Washing the dark color, it became orange and is damaged/​frizzt. When I’d talked to the stylist earlier in the year, we discussed Wella. The stylist instead used a Redken alternative called Teavana with quite a bit of volumizer for fine hair, which I guess makes the coloring process faster. My hair is very easy to color and make look good — this didn’t. It’s too bad because the former blond was such a pretty color, and the highlights never did shine through as promised. It now looks a little like the color of muddy dog s*** — I don’t say that lightly — it’s the oddest thing. The cut is also not good and falls flat. It’s just a disappointment all around. The reason I’m writing is because it’s about a month after the experience, and someone said to me who knew what I usually looked like just looked at me for a while and out of the blue said today, «Whoever did your hair really did a number on you.» Yup.