Vidal Sassoon Academy

You just might receive a *fantastic* haircut if your student is careful and the instructor is diligent. DO NOT get a haircut from a Czech guy named Thomas!!! He was cutting a lady’s hair next to me and (1) barely understood English; (2) was impossibly rude to his customer.
I came to Sassoon Academy for the first time as I’d used academies in the U.S. for haircuts and had good experiences. I ended up getting the best haircut of my life at Sassoon Academy. I think that’s 98% due to the wonderful instructor who was supervising my student stylist — he was East Asian. My student stylist was Slovakian and also barely spoke to me. When I asked the instructor for clarification on what she was doing, the student stylist even said, «She doesn’t trust me.» No customer skills at all.
I was also talked by another instructor into getting a single strip of color in my hair, which also turned out marvelous.
The reason I give the Academy 4 stars, instead of 5, is because of the atrociously bad customer service many of the student stylists exhibit, particularly the Eastern Europeans. I don’t know when the students are permitted to begin cutting hair for customers, but it does not seem as though they are trained in customer service at all.

Be prepared for a wait, and be prepared for the tiny chance that you will be disappointed. Be prepared for a lot of hands fiddling with your noggin, prepare for some pulling and tugging, prepare to need a cup of tea and an urgent visit to the lav.
But be prepared to be lucky and get a cut by the next Euro SuperStylist? you never know.
I would guess 70% of people are happy 10% exstastic 5% get revelations and the rest dont come out of their houses for a month.
What more could you want for a fiver?
Brilliant.

Before my dreams were realised and I became a part of the British film industry’s paid workforce, I was a lowly intern, scraping by on a mere handful of pennies each month. All unnecessary expenses were jettisoned, which included trips to the hairdressers. Sadly, I do not posess the sort of barnet which can go for that long without care and attention. I’m a natural blonde, which means less bouncing golden mane, more limp, lifeless strands of dullness.
One day, meandering home through Oxford Circus, I was accosted by an eastern European girl brandishing a Vidal Sassoon business card. For £12, she told me, I could get a cracking hair cut at a snip of its value (geddit?!? Snip. Ahaha). She would be supervised by her professor, who was a director of the salon, and therefore it would be top-​class quality for very little money. And it would only take an hour. And yes, I could just have a trim. So being the sort who doesn’t look a gifthorse in the mouth, and looking not unlike a horse at the time, I (admittedly cautiously) said yes.
Firstly, it didn’t take an hour. It took the better part of three. I had stressed from the get-​go that I was there on my lunchbreak and could therefore only be gone for 60mins, but they couldn’t care less. Yes, they are students and yes, it takes time, but don’t promise what you can’t provide. Secondly, the «supervision» was sorely limited. The big boss ended up overseeing a large part of my haircut, but this was only because he entirely missed the first half of the proceedings, and on his preliminary check, nearly fell over when he saw how she was manhandling my locks. My heart sank when I saw him demonstrate how she *should* have been holding the sections before chopping, as opposed to how she *had* been doing it. So it came as no surprise when, attempting to engage her in conversation, I asked my student stylist how long the course lasted. «Two years,» she responded, «And I’ve been here three days». WHAT??? GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY HAIR!!!
Sadly, by this point there was nothing to be done but wait it out. Later on, she attempted the classic hairdresser move where they simultaneously run both hands down the strands on either side of your face in order to line up the lengths. Except when she did it, her hands moved at entirely different speeds and even to my untrained eye, the difference of nearly an inch (no word of a lie!) was painfully obvious.
The supervisors have a policy of not getting physically involved with their students’ cuts, but he had to take over the styling process going on with another customer, and I could see him itching to grab the scissors from my girl. In the end, he stood breathing down her neck for 30 minutes whilst she tried to rectify her many mistakes. Perhaps I was there on a particularly duff day, but it was not a happy experience. It’s ridiculously cheap, but you pay the price in the loss of confidence and the inevitable follow-​up at your regular salon. Don’t do it. Save your money, save your hair, save yourselves!

I have been cutting my hair in Vidal Sassoon salons for years now. I first discovered them in Croatia and decided I would not waste my time with other hairdressers. When I moved to London, I realised that they were a wee too dear for me, and I thought that would be the end of us.
A friend of mine told me of their Academy and I decided to give it a go. Here are some tips for those of you who might be considering trying it out:
1. Book in advance
2. Be ready to stay 1,5−2 hours (some hairdressers have translators plus each stage has to be approved by the teacher)
3. Know what you want them to do (they have very good teachers who make sure you get exactly what you want)
4. More important, know what you DO NOT want (they like experimenting with hair and will do it if you say you are not sure and that you want them to do whatever they want with it). So, if they ask you if you are sure, sure you only want a trim, stick to your guns!!!

5. I haven‘t had the best experience with dying my hair there (I wasn’t too sure about the colour and I let them put two colours-​it looked amazing at first, but it took me a while to get it back to the colour I wanted)
6. The best for funky haircuts and colours (a friend of mine always lets them to do whatever they want with her hair and loves it…)
All in all, it‘s not perfect, but I go back because of their professional staff, great price (£5 for students and £12 for everybody else) and decent haircut.

This was the first time at the Academy, recommended by a friend, I was a little nervous to begin with, I was put in the advanced academy where they are not actually students but already qualified hairdressers and they pay to attend the academy to learn the techniques of a Vidal Sassoon cut.
I had a lovely Irish girl cut my hair who knew what she was doing, she done the most wonderul tapered bob for me which is wahat I asked for and for £12 is a real bargain, going to definitely go back for another cut and also a colour. I would recommend this Academy to anyone.
The own downfall is that it does take quite a long time which you are told it would but was well worth the hanging around because you know the teacher will not let you leave until the haircut is perfect, which as I said mine was.

I receieved a fantastic haircut from the Vidal Sassoon Academy yesterday, for just £5 (student price). I was booked in for an appointment at the ‘classic’ academy — my advice is to arrive at least 15 minutes before your stated appointment time, as a huge number of people seem to be booked in for the same slot, and everyone seems to start assigning models to students before the stated time.
The organisation at the beginning was a bit shambolic (I’m deducting one star for that), but I suppose that for such a cheap haircut you shouldn’t expect the five-​star treatment that a full-​price salon gives you. After describing what you would like done to the hairdresser in charge, you are sent to a specific salon, depending on level of difficulty. I was actually sent round the corner to the Advanced Academy in Brook Street (opposite Claridges), for which I was very glad, because I could overhear some of the less-​experienced students in the first salon complaining that they ‘didn’t want to do highlights’ on one model who had requested them, because they were ‘bored’ of doing them.
The Advanced, or ‘Creative’ Academy had a nicer atmosphere than the ‘Classic’ Academy, and was better organised — I will make a booking for this one in future. I was assigned with 4 other models to a class of already-​qualified stylists doing a one-​week course in advanced cutting techniques, so I knew that I was in experienced hands. Before the stylists came in, the supervising teacher asked each model what we wanted done to our hair, made suggestions, and then produced a diagram for our stylists to refer to.
The haircut itself took about 3 hours, which I had been told to expect, because the stylist frequently stopped to ask the teacher to show her a particular technique, or to check what she was doing. Both the teacher and the stylists were friendly and professional, and I was very pleased with the end result. The other models seemed happy with their cuts too. I will definitely return here, but next time I will make a point of booking into the advanced Creative academy.

If you love your hair then don’t be tempted by the very cheep prices and protect it from the hair butchers. You will end up spending twice as much having the damage corrected then you would have if you had just paid for a decent hair cut from a proper salon. All I wanted was to go from a darkish blond like Sarah Jessica Parker to a light blond like Gwyneth Paltrow. This was an effect I could have achieved for £7 from a box so I thought a student could handle it. Well three hours later as I have wasted my day here I see the final result and my hair is GREY! I actually look like Helen Mirren, so much for Gwyneth Paltrow. I begin to complain and the teacher assures me that in a few days the toner will wash out and it will look good. Well a week later, I am still grey after many many many thorough scrubs in the shower. Yes in the end I did get my money back, but I still had to pay to fix their mistakes.

Come here if you want a haircut for £4.50! Vidal Sassoon students cut your hair for a fraction of what it would cost in a Vidal Sassoon salon. I’ve been a number of times and haven’t had any disasters (yet!) and would highly reccomend it.
Only bad thing is appointments normally take about 3 hours but if you have more time than cash you’ve just found your new hairdresser!