Salon down the street from me in Daytona has a sign in the window saying no box dye clients, and I get it but also yikes | Cosmetologists - Free To Speak
Salon down the street from me in Daytona has a sign in the window saying no box dye clients, and I get it but also yikes
Walked past a salon on Seabreeze Blvd twice this week and both times I stopped at the same paper sign taped inside the glass. It said they won't take clients who used box color in the past 6 months unless they pay for a full strand test first. I get the reasoning because correction work eats up a whole chair for hours, but the sign felt like a middle finger to half the people walking by. How do you all handle box dye clients at your chair, do you say no up front or just charge them for the extra time?
That 6 month window is actually backwards from how most color lines work. The rule of thumb in the industry is that box dye can keep reacting with lightener for up to a year, sometimes longer if it was a dark shade, so a strand test done at 6 months can pass and then the real application still lifts uneven or turns brassy. The other thing is that a strand test only shows you how that one little piece lifts, it does not tell you how the rest of the hair will grab toner or how the banding will show up. Most stylists I know who deal with this just do a test strand plus a patch test and then book double the time and charge for it, because saying no up front pushes people to try fixing it at home with bleach and that is how they end up in my chair with a chemical cut. A flat no on a sign also makes people lie about their history, which is way more dangerous than just charging for the extra work. I get why the salon put the sign up, correction work really does eat a whole day, but the 6 month number is the part that is off, not the strand test itself.