Vanguard College of Cosmetology

Very nice student. The teacher came to check. The student didn’t go all the way to my roots but the top looked good. The teacher should have caught the mistake and didn’t. I have an appointment next Saturday to fix it and they took off 15%. Just know they are practicing and have patience :-)

I had been looking to get a new hair color style for several years, tired of the same boring highlights ice had for many years. I took a picture of the coloring style that I wanted, just to ensure that there was no confusion or misinterpretation. They assured me that this would not be a problem. After 6 hours sitting in the salon chair, it was evident that it was a problem. The stylist working on my hair received instruction from 3 separate supervisors, all three were conflicting in their instruction. My favorite summer shirt was completely ruined add the hair dye was running down my face and was even all over the floor. In the end, I had the same hair highlight that I always had. The manager assured me this would be a simple correction, so 2 days later there I was sitting back in the chair for ANOTHER 6 hours! The 2 managers could not even agree on the method required to achieve this look. Finally, one took charge and proceeded with instruction to the stylist. Total disaster! I just hope I can post pictures. They never offered to return any of the money I paid for the completely inadequate service I received nor the shirt they ruined. I am still trying to scrub the stain off of my face, neck and arms. To say I’m disappointed is an understatement!

My haircut came out fine, but the «future professionals» really need to work on the professional aspect of their training. My entire time I was there, I felt like I was paying to be a living mannequin. At the beginning of my appointment, my hair and I were talked about by the students while I just sat there feeling awkward. The most interaction I had with the student cutting my hair was when she asked what I do for a living and very emphatically replied with «Oh, YUCK!» when I told her. (I’m an English teacher; you’d have thought I said I was a Port-​a-​John cleaner.) Later, she, her shadowing student, and the student at the neighboring station spent the entire time she dried my hair gossiping about another student they didn’t like.
I thought things would get better when the supervising teacher came over to check the cut and catch any missing pieces, but instead she just came over, asked the student about the cut, and then roughly trimmed up some loose ends. She never once even acknowledged I was there underneath my haircut – no eye contact or greeting.
I completely understand that this is a school and didn’t expect five-​star treatment, but I really urge the Paul Mitchell programs to work more on customer service. The hour I spend at the salon every few months is supposed to be a time for me to relax and take a timeout, not feel awkward and uncomfortable. The quality of the cut was fine, but I won’t be coming back and paying to feel bad.

I made the unfortunate decision to get a groupon and try out Paul Mitchell… I was there to get highlights, a cut and an Awapuhi treatment. My stylist began by doing the consult of what I needed done with my color. I have gotten highlights for over 15 years but definitely wanted to be sure that my color did not end up orange or yellow in tone.
Unfortunately it went downhill from there… I was there for more than 4 hours and I could tell the stylist did not know or understand how to foil or highlight correctly. I mentioned this to my stylist but she assured me she was foiling properly. I tried to let her know several times that she wasn’t doing it the way I had EVER had it done before.
After the stylist was about ¼ of the way done with the foils, her friend (another stylist) came over to «help» her by starting on the other side of my head!!! Needless to say, the two sides of my head came out terribly different (one side was much more bright and highlighted than the other).
Neither the stylist nor the teacher assigned to my stylist seemed to know what they were doing. The teacher gave zero direction to foiling technique. She was absent after they picked out the colors they would use.
Then the stylist began pulling out the foils while I was in the chair and spraying my hair with a water bottle while wiping it off with a towel??? Now I was really worried. I asked her why she was doing that and she said that because they are student and take longer than usual to foil, this is they typical way they begin removing the foils. I am pretty sure this just made the color bleed into other parts of my hair :/​.
Needless to say, the highlights turned out terribly. The color was wrong, I looked like I had 2 weeks or more of new growth/​roots showing, one side of the top of my head looked bleach blonde…
By the grace of God, I was able to schedule an emergency color rescue the very next day at a reputable salon in town… I saw a color specialist there who was completely appalled at the highlight job. She said it was one of the worst she had ever seen… there was bleeding, streaks, big chunks of blonde… my roots were still dark and the blonde they used was way too light… there was no technique used in applying the foils. It cost me $ 180 to get the 4 hour «highlight» job from paul mitchell fixed… and it will take another trip to truly get the corrections made in color.
I spoke to someone at Vanguard immediately following my appointment as well as someone from Paul Mitchell who called 1 – 2 weeks later after seeing the review… They offered to fix my hair but I had already had it fixed by that point. The lady you from Paul Mitchell corporate said that this was not typical of their schools and that the teacher should have been there every step of the way directing if something was not going correctly. She assured me they would speak to those involved. She also noticed I had purchased products while in store and offered to give me additional products free of charge, that I was able to pick up.
All in all I would say that even though I had a horrible experience, this may not be typical of this location. If you start seeing thing go badly, especially regarding the color or highlight techniques, you will have to speak up about it but to more than your assigned student and possibly to more than the teacher that is assigned to that student. You will be better off not having a really terrible color job to get fixed then the uncomfortableness of having to make it clear that you feel something is wrong.
As for me, I will not risk returning and will go back to a regular salon with color experts. ill update again.

The students are nice. The atmosphere is relaxing. Had to go back for them to touch up my color, and everyone was super helpful.