SmartStyle review: bad perm ( 1 comment)

I went in to get a perm on November2, 2009. I was told it would take a couple hours to complete because I have such long hair. I was fine with that. The stylist, Cherelle, had no clue what she was doing. It took 2 hours to put my hair into the rollers, not because it was a lot of hair... because she kept rolling it wrong and kept wanting to reroll it. Then, when she went to put the perm solution in my hair, she did not put a protective bib on my face. Thank god I had a towel nearby. She POURED the stuff on my head and it immediately went all down my face, into my eyes, all down my neck, and everywhere else. My eye was red and burning for several days and I have chemical burns on my neck. Finally, another stylist stopped her and had her put the bib on. When it was time to wash the perm solution out, all went according to plan. But when she moved me over to dry my hair, it was obvious that the perm did not perm the ends. She started mumbling about how it didn't quite take and she put some sticky gross paste in my hair. Then she walked into the back and talked on her phone for a bit. Then she hurried out the door saying it was a family emergency. I wasn't even done yet. She had all the goop in my hair and left. There was no family emergency. She had been griping earlier that she got off at 3 and wanted to be out on time. This phone call amazingly came at 3:20 when it was obvious that she was going to be late. The other stylist had to finish with her customer before I could be cared for. She looked at my hair, shook her head, and wound up having to wash the goop out of my hair. It still didn't come all the way out. My perm looked terrible. And I was still charged 95.00. The manager told me to come back the next day and she would do a conditioner on the perm to take it out and give me the trim that SHOULD have came with my perm in the first place, but did not. I show back up the next day and the manager isn't there. It turns out that she wasn't due back until several days later. Thankfully, a stylist that knew what she was doing conditioned and relaxed my hair. It looked acceptable when she was done. I called the main office and raised hell. They said that they would refund me and send me an insurance claim since I had burns. I got the claim several days ago. I still haven't gotten the refund. I called customer service to track it and they JUST mailed it out. Unacceptable. This has been nothing but frustration. The only person who is loving this is my lawyer.