Gareth & Co

I have been coming to Gareth for many years and always get a great professional cut. I don't use them for any hair colour but with short hair and 2 cowlicks and issues I have limited ability to diversify my hairstyle. Gareth is a true professional with years of experience both in NZ and overseas. I trust him to be honest with me about what is possible and he knows very well that I am not one of those ladies who likes to spend hours getting ready in the morning so keeps things simple and manageable for my limited abilities. Also they never try and push product on you like many salons.

Was tossing and turning about whether to rate this business. However I was left so upset by my experience with them, I feel that I need to share it so that others know. Came in to Gareth and Co to get my hair finally dyed blonde, something I had been looking forward to and working towards for a while. I had been growing out my black hair and had about 2inches of black on the ends of my hair, while the rest was my natural dark blonde/light brown. I had always wanted to be a natural to blonde ombré on the ends of my hair and communicated this with my hairdresser from the beginning. Straight away she told me we could achieve this and that we would not even need to strip the remaining dark colour from my hair and instead would just dye over it with a blonde. Well it didn't turn out as expected. I was left with orange ends of my hair, light middles and my natural roots. I looked like a traffic light with three different colours. I was advised to come back and try again in two weeks.

Fast forward to two weeks later, I even brought a picture this time to show her what I wanted so she clearly knew. She ended up doing the same thing she did last time, putting a whole
bunch of blonde foils through the middles and bottoms of my hair. What turned out was awful. I still had orange ends, but now I had intense, almost white blonde middles that I never wanted. What's worse is the ombré was not blended at all, with very obvious blocky lines where my natural colour stops and the blonde begins.

I was so upset I went and sought outside advice from many other different hair dressers who told me this was one of the worst attempts at an ombré they had ever seen, clearly done by someone who has no idea what the ombré technique is, and that I needed to be very careful what I did with my hair next because it was fragile and damaged on the ends from being so processed. I waited a while and thankfully was able to get my hair fixed by an experienced hair dresser who knew what she was doing, but this costed me almost $300, and due to the previous amount of dye that has been put through my hair, I will not be able to get to the colour I want now, at least not for a while.

All up this ordeal costed me at least $600, including the price to get it fixed. When I rang management to try and get some of my money back, I was asked to come in, which I was never going to do because I had one more shot to get this right before my hair was so overprocessed it would start falling out. I was then met with comments like "you were never going to get the colour you wanted" with management defending their very negligent hair dresser claiming she did the best she could, and no apology at all. I was refunded only the cost of my second visit ($166) not my first ($250).

I am so upset by how all of this was handled that I felt compelled to write this review. The fact that a hairdresser who had no idea what she was doing was able to damage and nearly destroy my hair, and that management seemed to defend her in this and made no attempt to at least empathise with my situation infuriated me. If you are at all in doubt about my story, the pictures speak for themselves...