Paul Mitchell
reviews and complaints

If you get the offer from Paul Mitchel Group, run from this person. He said that he could help me to build the network and would find the job. As well as he promised to give me some instructions and provide the support. However, after he got the payment, which was huge, he simply disappeared. His phone was switched off and he hasn’t responded to the emails. I hope that the police will find this man someday and put him behind the bars. He is too dangerous and dishonest.

So I'm writing this because I'm sick of keeping my mouth shut. I'm not one to complain, Ever. If you are considering going to a good school, I'd consider checking out others schools before going to Paul Mitchell, Cincinnati. They are so disorganized it's unreal. Nothing there is consistent, ever. They care more about leggings and wearing makeup than making their school a better place. After paying 19 thousand dollars, I expected way more. I moved to come to this school and I'm so disappointed. I feel like Phase 2 isn't about being a visionary, it's about kissing butt to the phase 2 Learning Leaders. It has nothing to do with being a visionary at all. It's also just a way to make more money for the school. The space is so limited on the floor that on Saturdays you can't even walk to the washouse so your guest can get shampood. It's a complete war zone. Your likely to get cut or burned, no joke. Some of the learning leaders are middle age teenagers and so catty and rude to students they don't like. It's no wonder there's so many dropouts. To top off the whole experience, I never recieved a graduation date and my certificate came 5 months after I graduated with the wrong month on it! I'd say I'm shocked but I'm not really with all the inconsistencies I've experienced there. Also, they don't do waxing or pedicures. Something you'll need to know when you get into the salon life. .. So yeah as much as I love the Paul Mitchell culture and cutting system.. I just wouldn't go to this Paul Mitchell school.

This school is a piece of work. Let's just start from the beginning. You call and either no one answers, or you talk to some oblivious young 20 something that has such an easy job a toddler could do it. You schedule appointments, answer phones, and take payments! How is it that hard!?!?! Not to mention some of them are terribly rude. The night front desk girl doesn't look at you when you walk up to the counter, she doesn't say anything, and most of the time she's just on her phone... This is if she's at the front desk... I did see her on the floor trying to have girly-girl conversations about boys with the students. Unprofessional. So once you get past that hurdle, you get to your seat... This is where the fun starts. Just kidding. This is where you wait 10 minutes for a teacher, then another 15 minutes for the teacher, then another 10... And so on. They need more teachers... They need competent teachers. It seems like the normal 2 they have on the floor barely equal the brain power of one. There's an older woman who walks around like she's lost... The kids seem like they know more than she does. And then there's another brash skinny endogenous woman. She seems more knowledgeable. But i did notice something weird, she pats the arms of the students quite often... And she seems to take over their hair cuts or dyes. She also talks to them in a manner that even my older mature self couldn't really understand. She almost talks down to them... Like shes 10 steps ahead of them, or she's teaching them something new right then and there instead of using what they've already learned. I overheard something about "this isn't in our systems" when that teacher walked off. So now we are off to get our hair washed... I hear the girls grumble about not having a certain shampoo or conditioner... Shouldn't the school have everything? It is a paul mitchell school, right? I usually come right after work when the night shift starts and it seems like the day time kids leave everything in a terrible mess. Once i saw a man get up from getting his hair washed and the whole back of his white t-shirt was colored with red dye because the seat wasn't washed before. Back to my seat to wait some more on the incompetent teachers. Oh now the endogenous one is carrying around a coffee while teaching. I don't know if oklahoma's state board allows that or not... This place is just pitiful... And it has nothing to do with the students. It has everything to do with the employees and the teachers. The students either don't have a clue what they are doing, or they're not confident in what they are doing because one teacher is completely oblivious and the other is holding her coffee walking away or talking down to them. I even saw a woman who looked "official" walking around in a short skirt and fancy heels talking down to one of the students. She seems like a real piece of work. I know more people that have had bad experiences here and have the same exact complaints... My whole family comes here. They just treat these kids like crap. How much are they paying for their education? How much are they actually getting out of it? Something tells me the owners of this school, or even the faces behind the paul mitchell brand would be terrible embarrassed by this school. Every employee at imagine paul mitchell norman, ok should be ashamed of themselves for not holding this place to a better standard, or themselves to a better standard. They should be ashamed for being more worried about their cliques than the well being of the students. They should be ashamed that they are not ashamed of the shady unethical, probably even illegal things they are doing that i've noticed and that are done behind doors. Please, if you go to this school, know it's not the students, they are trying their damnedest...

I went into this school happy & excited . i loved it, everybody seemed so nice & i loved the environment . of course there was drama but its expected . i was loving the way the they did things, the teachers were great, also i met some great ppl . but last week there was a new group of students came & it was this one girl that always would roll her eyes at me for no reason, she would tell ppl thatshe didnt like me but i never thought it would go this far . she went & said that me & my friend bullied her . i never spoke to her at all, a girl said that i said i would throw her down the steps . thats a lie i dont threaten ppl . but they kicked us out instantly, they didnt our story or nothing . they believed a one sided story, thats not right now i have to find another school ... smh dont ever attend paul mitchell

I would never return and let them even touch my hair again. Last year I decided I wanted a bob, and finally after three haircuts they got it even. So, I decided this year I would get highlights to cover my gray around my face, thinking that it was just one bad experience. Prior to any work done, I asked the supervisor what was the difference between highlights and lowlights. He told me that I already had lowlights and that my lighter color brown from the sun was the lowlights, since it was lighter than my darker brunette and that the blond would be my highlights. Googled that once I got home. Boy was he wrong. Anyway once highlighted, my hair was so blond, I didn't even see my original hair color (#4 and #7 according to the brunette color chart) and it was all wheat blond. The only original color was buried in the back and I had to lift my hair off my neck to see any original color. I complained and was told I just had never had highlights before and that was how it was supposed to look. Shouldn't my main color still be my #4 and #7 brunette, and less of the blond? I thought maybe 80 percent should be original color and the remaining highlights. Thankfully they stripped all of the color out and returned it to the original brunette. The supervisor Anthony was rude and said I should have known what I was doing since my hair was colored before. I specifically told the stylist and Anthony prior to any service that my hair has never been colored and to be easy on the highlights and had stated so when he checked to verify that the stylist was correct in picking my original color from the chart. Apparently he was too busy cheerleading to pay attention to what I said. I then had to pay for the extra solution to get the wheat blond out of my hair. So basically I paid $53 for a shampoo and lost 4.5 hours of my night. I realize this is a school, but maybe the “supervisor” should pay more attention, or the students have more training before trying it out on an actual person. Also when she washed my hair after taking out the highlights she couldn’t even get a comb through it since it was so tangled. I asked if that would be the case and was told no, it’s only this one time due to the solution. Well, wrong! I had to go buy detangler and have never had to use that or conditioner ever. So now I get to wait and see how bad my color is going to look after my hair grows and see the two different colors since they had to dye it back to brunette. Great hair day and more to come it seems. Right.

Knoxville required me to show a positive review of their school as a graduation requirement. Need i say more. The stories read on this page are through & through daily occurances in knoxville. Owner is money hungry & has a loophole to steal every penny of financial aid you could ever qualify for. The culture preached is a do as i say not as i do situation. For $20k per student there should be more staff, supplies & working time clock. You are charged by the hour, measured by a non functioning time clock. The contract actually threatens you with irrepairable harm if you challenge their contract that they reserve the right to change!

This school is not a good investment of you're money I will tell you now, please save yourself the trouble. This school cost 20, 000 dollars to go to, now I don't know about you but that's a lot of money to me! This school WILL NOT teach you 20 thousand dollars worth of education, I PROMISE you that! The staff comes and goes and most of them are barley any older than the students and do not have much more experience than the students themselves. They will sweep you away on the tour if you go on one, it goes by so fast it does not really give you enough time to truly look at the school from every aspect. The BEST thing you can do if you are considering this place as a school is to ask (because they won't offer) if you can spend the whole day shadowing different students out on the floor and the classrooms! When I started school here I started to see everything they hide from you on a tour, one day as a student at this place I was asked to go around and tell everyone to put their cell phones away and to clean up pop and drinks off other students stations and to clean and "tidy" up because we had a tour coming, so I then realized this is what they did to me when I took my tour they made it seem extra clean there when it's really NOT. The thing is people shouldnt have their cell phones out on the floor anyway, and things should already be clean even if there isn't a tour coming! This place is so uncleanly it makes me sick, even my family and friends who have come up to get their hair done have said things about how dirty and unprofessional it is here. Students always leave crud in the sinks (bleach, color, etc) which ends up getting on you're clients hair (unsanitary). They are ALWAYS out of products at this school and are cheap to order more supplies! They also run out of towels to dry you're clients hair 100% of the time while they have ONE, one student only in the back with only one working washer because the others are broke and the school is too cheap to fix them, so they have that one person working to wash and dry 300 and some towels. Also another really bad and unprofessional thing is there is a learning leader "teacher" assigned to each row every morning but when you need them you the student have to go searching high and low for them always, they are never in the row they are assigned to, the wander around the school, some go out to smoke, keep in mind at this time you could be in the middle of a highlight and hit a point where you NEED HELP and you have that bleach on you're clients head AND the client is $PAYING money for this service and you go looking for you're teacher and there's no one around to help! Not only is that RUDE to the client but it doesn't help us learn as students when they are not there to help us and guide us. They let students put there makeup on at the stations that are supposed to be used for clients. This school is not fair and it's all a favoritism game you have to play or you're not accepted. Well Im sorry but I didn't sign up for school to kiss people's feet. Instead I'm getting kicked in the teeth along with a lot of other students who are too afraid or too nervous to reach out and just say something. You dont learn enough, they teach you barley enough just to pass starboard. As to where the L.A. School and the Hamptons NY Paul Mitchell learn so much more than us! It was embarrassing the things this school did not know when Vivian McKinder came to teach us amazing things that nobody at this school knew how to do, how are we supposed to learn when our school can't even teach us a full head Razor hair cut using JUST a razor like Vivian showed us? How are we supposed to learn when we aren't allowed to play with hair color on our doll heads to see how the colors come out or how different colors look when mixed with other colors, they make you pay for color if you want to use it, WHAT A CHEAP SCHOOL! We are paying 20 grand and that's no enough to cover color to use on our doll heads? Instead we have to use cholesterol which is lotion basically. I am so embarrassed to even be coming here. It's a waste of you're money so please do not get suckered into it like they try and do. Weigh out you're options, shadow, look at other schools, be SMART!

I recently enrolled at Paul Mitchell the School and after having paid a $100.00 application fee I was denied enrollment. The reason I was first given for being denied was that my high school diploma was not equivalent to a U.S. High School diploma (although I had my transcripts from high school certified by a nationally known accreditation service used by major colleges and universities in the United States). I was told that I would need to obtain a GED (even though I am in my second year at a California State College). I tried to explain to the inept manager of the school that you cannot even enroll in a State College or University unless you have completed high school, but she knew better, NOT ! I also tried to explain that you cannot even take a GED test if you have already graduated from high school. After insisting that my high school diploma was valid and recognized in the United States as being equivalent to a U.S. high school diploma the manager said she would send my application back for consideration (turned out to be just lip service). A day later I received a certified letter from the school that, "AFTER CAREFUL CONSIDERATION YOUR APPLICATION HAS BEEN DENIED !
After receiving this letter I did some research on my own and found out that Paul Mitchell is NOT ACCREDITED (even though they try to convince you that you can receive financial aid just like in college), I also learned that they do not even have a license to operate in California as a school (Not approved by the California Board of Barbering and Cosmetology).
My advice to anyone looking to enroll at Paul Mitchell...DON'T !

Don't Go To Paul Mitchell Waukesha, WI; students where drinking at Caper in Las Vegas (a school event) and were not expelled! This is suppose to be a "Be Nice Culture" yet students are calling each other names, threatening each other, stealing from one another. The learning leaders are friends with the students and do nothing to discipline those who mistreat, threaten, steal, miss days of school including Saturdays. Again, this is suppose to be a be nice culture! Students are loosing hours on their education for school, hours that they did not miss, hours that are not being replaced when should be. The students are constantly replacing their kits that costs $2, 500, the supplies does not even include state board supplies, not even for Mocks (a practice test for state board). When students bring to the learning leader's attention of harassing situations, abusive and threatening situations, they take nothing serious because of the friendships that have been made with learning leaders vs. students. The girls are mean and rude to other students, even to staff and yet nothing is done! This school is horrible, expensive, promotes drinking on school functions, allows abuse - even students who threaten each other. Don't go to Paul Mitchell School that is in Waukesha, WI. Your student will love the first 6weeks but land up hating the very existence of even choosing The Academy Waukesha, Paul Mitchell School . Even if your student realizes the mistake he or she made of choosing Paul Mitchell, he or she will not have the option to switch because the owner will not their hours transfer, he will even charge for a huge fee to make it impossible to do so. Just Say No! Don't Go!

Upon touring and school and considering a school so far from our home/state we were under the impression that the cosmetology industry was nationally regulated, so that the hours needed for taking state boards and licensing were the same throughout the country. Knowing that we were from out of state, as a big deal was made of it in the tour, it was never mentioned to us that the required hours varied from state to state. Even if our states specific requirements were not known, we should have been told that we needed to find that out for ourselves. Had we known that our daughter would need another 500 hours of schooling to come back to VA. to get her license or have to wait in NY to take her boards, get licensed and work there 6 months, we would not have sent her to school there. We do not believe that the school did not know about the hour variance. Because of this lie by omission and the other lies we were told, as listed below, we made the unfortunate decision to send her there. We now realize that they would say, or omit, anything at all to get students in there. The other lies are as follows:
There would be dorms to live in. They did not end up being finished. We are told this is the cities fault. We no longer know if to believe that or not.
They taught with "hands on" methods and worked with all learning styles. This did not end up being true.
The teachers were experienced and first rate. Except for the first one our daughter had, they ended up being young, inexperienced, not helpful and treating many of the students very badly.
That they had a very active "design team" and would do hair and makeup for fashion week, the theater and movies. She asked continually about doing these, was given vague answers and these things never ended actualizing.
The atmosphere at the school ended up being very unprofessional and party like and she feels she did not learn much at all.
We were told it was a seven month course--period. Once she started she was told it's an eight month course. They couldn't even be honest about this, especially since we had to budget to keep her up there? Now we're informed that it's not even month based at all, it's hourly. This was not explained to us. To this end, our daughter was moved to a class ahead of hers, for having in so many hours, yet she's told she wouldn't graduate until a month after expected. Now, to leave at the end of almost eight months, but they say her hours are not up, they want over $2, 800. Due to the length of the course being changed on us, things not being explained to us, budgets, and her living arrangement being over, she has to leave. Again, though, worst of all, is that even if she finished the course there--which in our opinion she has, she would have to go to more schooling here to take her boards and get licensed.
We are shocked and appalled that Paul Mitchell allows his name to be connected to an institution like this one. We had believed in the name, as well as the lies we were told. We had thought that our daughter would graduate from a Paul Mitchell school in NYC and be able to go right to work anywhere in the US, if not the world. We thought we were getting her the best eduation in the field that was available in the country. Instead it seems to be about the worst. We know of other students there that feel the same, but are too afraid to speak out. Now, there are large student loans to pay and she didn't even get a complete education--even if she had been able to stay until their skewed records said she was done. She could Not have come back here, or gone Anywhere else in most of the US, to take her boards, get licensed and work. To add insult to injury they want the $2, 800+ before she can get her transcripts so that she can move on--with yet more loans and debt, but at least get her required hours and education for VA. or elsewhere in the country.

In Jan 2011 I went in for a highlight touchup...after consultation the student died it all one color. Despite my many attempts to tell both her and the teacher that this is not how I normally get my hair highlighted and asking "where are the foils" and "how are you going to get the different colors"..her answer shrugged her shoulders and stayed away from me. The teacher trying not to look "shocked" said, oh it is going to be beautiful. NO ONE STOPPED TO SAY..OH, THIS IS WRONG, Let's fix it. Instead they went on and just sent me on my way like I was the fool. So, I lived with the shocking new color and grew to live with it. BUT the straw came in March when I went in for a trim to the back...you know, like 1/4 inch with shaping around the face/crown...and left missing a good 6 inches. Yes...hair formerly at my waist that I worked YEARS to grow is up to my shoulder blades. Long? still long...sure. But not what I came in for. We consulted and talked and what she did was not at all what we discussed and did the teacher make sure she learned or did the right thing. NO. When I called for constructive criticism/education so they could talk to the student guess what they said. "well, you can come in for a cut to fix it...but we can't glue it back on, so I guess we can't do anything for you." Sure s&&&T sherlock...I KNOW that, how about talking to the student so that she can learn from this. I guess your not really being prepared to face the world when you leave there.

Everythng we were told about this school turned out to be lies. Originally we were told there would be dorm rooms available. The dorms ended up never being built.
We were told that the students did alot of extra curricular activities, such as going on site to do hair and make up for movies, plays, fashion shows, etc.in 6 months of being at the school they haven't done any of this even once. We were told it was a seven month course. Now we fnd out it wll actually end up being a 8 to 9 month course.
Besides all of this, many of the teachers are barely any older than the students, and they tend to treat the students, at least the ones they don't become bbf's with, terribly. The favoritism is completely appallng. The "favorites" can wear almost anything they like, and act almost any way they like. If, however, you are not in the select group of favorites, you are picked on even when you do dress and act completely within the rules. This school has been a complete let down in every way. Paul mitchell should shut it down, as it gives him a horrible reputation.

I went to the Academy in SI, a Paul Michell School under the unbrella of AF Bennett Spa. They get you a Sallie Mae Loan, make you sign contracts while you are in the night classes. All I learned was how to use color crayola, draw and sit and eat pizza. Asked to spend 5, 000. on a Trip to Las Vegas to promote Paul Mitchell products, i still have my Text books wrapped in orginal plastic. We never learned anything about hair Style, cutting or shaping hair, I cryed I made a mistake.. Now I left after 4 weeks. and Sallie Mae is added Interest to my account. I will not pay a trade school that does nothing. Their teachers are awful, drama queens.

They are not interested to teaching you what you are paying for.

Now I have to get help in paying off Sallie Mae and hope that the president

closes Sallie Mae Loans, Like he did with Freddie Mac Loans, a rip off completely.