This Or Die Salon

I went in for a haircut this weekend I usually keep my long hair length bc I’m traumatized from a bad haircut I once had. Julie was so patient with me when I asked her to take 4ish inches off then I kept asking for a little more to be taken off then another tiny bit lol she styled my hair so beautifully and assured me that I would be able to still create cute dos with my shorter hair. In the end I’m in love with my new hair length! Thanks Julie!

Natalie did an AMAZING job with my hair! I’ve been getting my hair cut and colored by the same person for almost 10 years so needless to say I was extremely nervous about getting my blonde hilights re-​done. She was so professional, easy to talk to, and most importantly I’m obsessed with my hair!!! She gave me exactly what I wanted and the cut was amazing– she made my hair look like I never thought it could. Overall ¹⁰⁄₁₀ experience, I will be back for as long as Natalie is still here!

I have known Natalie for more than 3 years and she is the most talented and genuinely wonderful hairstylist that I have ever met. She’s la triple threat with her cutting, coloring and styling skills. Want rainbow hair? She’s your girl! Want a cool ass haircut? Go see her! Want to look fancy and fresh for a big event? Call her up! I honestly couldn’t recommend her highly enough — she always makes my hair look incredible.

LOVE MY NEW HAIR!
I just moved here from San Francisco and was in search of a stylist to replace mine of four years.
In being new to the area, I ventured on Unilocal to find the perfect fit and took a leap of faith with Natalie.
Right from the start it was a positive experience.
She asked me the right questions, confirmed she could do exactly what I wanted, and finally she executed it perfectly!
Thanks Natalie for my amazing cut and color!
I’m looking forward to becoming a regular here at the salon and a client of yours.
Get your hair done here, you won’t be disappointed!

New hair cut by Natalie. THANK YOU! Defininetly would recommend her to you. She’s awesome!

I was so nervous since i haven’t cut my hair for 4 years. And i did coloring with Natalie. It was my first time dye my hair from natural dark color to Lavender! And i loved it:):):)

I love this place! It’s so laid back. Very welcoming. My favorite thing about this place is the striped wall!(I love strips!) And Nathalie! she is the sweetest. Love her style. I have gone red and she made me the perfect redhead! And now I went for the granny hair!!(silver hair) Nathalie made me the perfect granny! Love my silver hair! Defiantly coming back!

This or die is absolutely wonderful! Danielle cut my hair and she was amazing. I didn’t know what I wanted and she helped me figure out what would look great and made it happen. I’ve been getting so many compliments on my hair and I can’t wait to go back for my next hair cut (and color next time too!). She was also super personable and easy to talk with. Go get your hair cut here!

I do not normally post to Unilocal,but would like to recommend Natalie to all the guys out there who are looking for a stylist that:
1) Can achieve the look that you want in a very reasonable amount of time
2) Can make clear style recommendations
3) Can make clear product recommendations
4) Is sociable and easy to interact with
Natalie has been my stylist of choice for two years now, and I drive out of my way from South LA to Atwater Village just to have my hair cut by her. That’s how much I trust her to do a great job.
If you know the look you want, she can achieve it.
If you aren’t sure about which look to go for, she can make great recommendations and explain her reasoning behind them.
Thanks, Natalie, for years of great service and great cuts!

Just found this place and am never going anywhere else! Danielle is a rockstar and did an amazing job taking 9 inches off my hair. Overall it was a great experience and I am beyond thrilled with the results!

Danielle rocks! Been coming here for about a year now for both color and cuts. Danielle really listens to you and truly wants to make you look fabulous.

I am so happy to have found This Or Die Salon, because Danielle made all of my purple hair dreams come true! She is an amazing colorist, and since I was open to new hairstyles and deviating form the norm, she encouraged me to trim my bangs short for a «Betty Bang» look! Everyone I knew loved it AND the color of my hair (I couldn’t stop looking at it for days) and she did such an amazing job of getting the right color based on the picture I gave her, I have been coming back for touch ups ever since.
Danielle and I immediately clicked when we met, talking about The Walking Dead and Cosplay and she’s a Whovian so pretty much every visit has been like visiting your good friend that transforms you into a pretty unicorn :) If you’re looking for amazing color, this is definitely the place to go! There’s lots of parking on the street and in the neighborhood, just be sure to read the signs, as it is Atwater Village and it’s getting more popular than it has been in previous years.

YOU MUST GO TO SEE NATALIE!
I drove all the way from Long Beach after seeing her photos on Unilocal (I loved her coloring). She was absolutely accommodating to my schedule and so sweet. Most importantly, my color and cut were exactly what I asked for (most likely because of her consultation with me beforehand).
My hair is absolutely perfect for my engagement photo session.

I got my hair done by Natalie about a month ago.
She took me from a weird brassy brown to beautiful beachy blonde. It was literally a life changing hair color/cut.I walked out of that salon feeling like a new woman. I was nervous because I have been burned by SO many salons in the past but she worked her magic and gave me exactly what I wanted. I was totally amazed! Seriously, what is this witchcraft !? Before going in I had been in a hair rut, wearing it in a bun every day now I have had great hair days every day since walking out of This or Die.
On top of being the best colorist/​stylist I have ever been to she was SO sweet and friendly. She was very knowledgeable and gave me a bunch of great tips about caring for my hair texture and color but she was not pushy with products like other salons are. It was a Sunday morning, we made a bunch of small talk and somehow oysters came up (I’m from the east coast and miss a lot of the seafood over there!) she recommended the Atwater Village farmers market which is literally across the street –went right afterwards great recommendation (but now I am rambling –thats another review for another place) As far as LA salon prices go I think it is totally reasonable. For the color/​cut it was $ 150 (I think? its been a month so I don’t remember exactly so it could have been a little more or a little less) It was worth EVERY.SINGLE.PENNY.
The salon itself has a really cool edgy feel as well. I will definitely be back, I think I want to go even blonder next time… I am addicted ! lol

Soooooo I went from my naturally pretty dark brown hair to an amazing Navy blue and it was all thanks to my amazing hair wizard Anastasia! I have never seen my hair lift so quickly so even though I love my girl I wasn’t sitting in the salon for 6 hours trying to get my hair done…
Anyway since people who write negative reviews like to post essays I think I’ll post an essay on how amazing my experience was from the moment I came in, 30 min early, Anastasia was profesional and friendly. I sat at her chair as she explained to me that she found a color that would be exactly what I wanted and could be applied to my dark hair but she suggested we lift my hair first to really get the blue to show. I of course know nothing about hair and I trust that her judgment is obviously better than mine as I do nails and I don’t like it when people tell me how to do my job. She proceeded to bleach my hair and we had an awesome conversation as this was going on when my hair was where it needed to be she washed it and dried it and applied the color I sat for a while with that on my hair and then when we washed it out and everyone was praising it I was excited to see the final outcome. It was perfect that’s all you really need to know. I’ll update this with pictures later but honestly guys when you come in to a salon trust what your stylist says should be done to get the desired look and you will. never leave unhappy :) thank you anastasia my hair is amazing I love it!

Great haid by Danielle as always!!! super nice atmosphere, the girls are all very nice and their online booking service is excellent.

Had a fantastic week thanks to Natalie, who gave me possibly the best haircut of my life last Sunday. I have fine, wavy hair and she gave me a bob/​shag cut that works so well with my natural waves that I don’t have to use a blowdryer anymore. I actually didn’t touch my hair at all this week– a true wash and go cut that looks better the less you do to it.
I am grateful to Natalie because as she was cutting I thought maybe it wasn’t short enough in the back (the cut is angled a bit so it is a little longer in the front) and she told me to wait until it dried. She was totally right, she had gotten the length/​angling spot on.
Highly recommend Natalie, especially if you have wavy hair and are looking for a cut that doesn’t require a lot of (or any) styling!

I walked into this place the other day to see if someone could do I quick trim. Never been inside but it looked like a nicer place. The only person working was Natalie and she had time to do the cut right then which was nice. She was really friendly.
Now, I’m pretty picky about having anyone style my hair, but when we talked a bit I kind of changed my mind and decided I wanted her to give me a little more than a trim, style it up a bit for the summer. She did a very good job and it was exactly the way she told me it would come out. love it and will go back to her from now.
Plus its hard to find a female stylist who I actually trust and Natalie definitely gained mine.
Atwater is also a nice place to come for a coffee, lunch, day trip.

Wow — I had to update after reading the response Anastasia left. I feel like I already wrote everything I needed to say already in my review, and I just want to be done with this negative experience, so I am just going to address the major untruths of her response and then move on! I looked back at the reviews to see how I missed the bad ones and it looks like there are a handful of people that had bad experiences (with hair cuts and/​or customer service) so this is not a first for them. (You would think they would know how to more professionally handle clients based on this.) There’s nothing worse than wasting time and money and also feeling like you have been sucked into a scene from Mean Girls.
I’m going to use bullet points to make something not fun more entertaining for me:
1) I have bleached my hair in the past, but at the time of the consultation, my hair was untreated. I said I wanted to avoid a harsh bleach treatment but that I wanted to achieve a NOTICEABLE color, NOT subtle and she said she could help me achieve that look. 2) After she colored my hair, I was NOT happy with the color and I told her it looked black to me. She said it was totally noticeable. It’s so insane to me that she recalls that I «loved it» — but not surprising since she can’t seem to remember any of the other details of what I asked for. How can SHE say I was happy with my service? Don’t I get to decide that? I wasn’t even happy with the superfast haircut she gave me and had to have her blend some part of it when I went back the second time — she saw what I meant and fixed it. 3) Of course I tipped her because that is the right thing to do. I always tip at least 20% unless there is some kind of crazy problem. I had no idea at that time, that she would end up being so combative and unprofessional. 4) I called a few days later saying I was unhappy with the lack of color and she made an appointment for me exactly one week from my first appointment (I did not wait a week to call). 5) She DID NOT tell me there would be an extra charge to fix it or I never would have wasted more time going there. Again, whyyy would I lie about that? I would never have agreed to spend a total of $ 320+ (the original $ 161 plus the $ 160+ she was asking the second time) on the whack haircut and fixing the terrible dye job she gave me. 6) Thank god my credit card company still refunded me the portion of the amount that was for the useless dye job. I’m glad the salon at least had to spend some time dealing with the CC company to compensate for their horrendous client service. 7) I cancelled 5 times?! What on earth is she talking about here? I made my appt wayyy in advance and RESCHEDULED it twice several weeks before the appointment. In no way did I cancel 5 times (or even once), in fact I was told the second time that I would be charged for another reschedule so I don’t see how it is possible to cancel 5 times here.
Lastly, I have NEVER been called difficult by any person in ANY walk of my life. I have always and will always leave 100% honest, truthful reviews. I truly hope to never have to have such a crappy experience like this ever again and hope no one else does, too.
Anastasia’s response and how this salon handles clients* should speak to their overall lack of professionalism and the pictures should speak to her lackluster work — I don’t really need to say much more except that this is one of the few times Unilocal led me astray and I just hope my review can help someone else avoid this negative energy and drama. I’m sorry for taking up so much window space on your computers with this review upon review. Just had to keep it real.
Taking a nice deep breath and washing this experience away…
*6/​22/​15 update: for more unprofessional behavior, see the photo of their «Blacklist» I posted. Another patron (a friend of a friend) posted this to Instagram and confirmed the location. They have a handwritten blacklist in public view titled «No Call/​No Show» — more than likely, this is just a list of other people that complained about bad experiences. Why bother making a list of people that would never try to come back? Pretty amazing they would rather use their energy to try to embarass their former clients instead of learning how to provide good service.
**11/​21/​15: just saw Vanessa’s response. I have never contacted the salon in any way after the single unpleasant phone conversation I had with Vanessa that I detailed in my original review — it is not cool to accuse people of harassment. It is also not cool to post client names in public view at your salon. You think it is «insane» to post it on Unilocal to inform other customers of the lack of professionalism at your establishment but you don’t think it’s an issue to post client names in public view where anyone can take a picture of it?
I’m still baffled that I have been involved in an experience like this — hopefully my first and last of this magnitude of annoying.

NATALIE was my hairstylist, please say that I REFERRED you via Unilocal (msg if you did please).
My hairstyle CREATION include color brighten, toner, wash, cut and blow dry but before the process was started Natalie greeted me with a hot beverage (coffee was my choice and it was taste). I was her 1^st client and being treated so kindly was great.
I have a direction with my hair style in which I wanted particle of my hair to eventually go platinum and I have a mohawk hair cut. Natalie needed to lighten up my hair (which she did) and provided advice on how to maintain the color.