We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community for their worst beauty salon horror stories. Here are some of their responses...
1. The Lice Lil' Trim
"I went to a salon to get my hair trimmed. A few days later I noticed my head was really itchy. I went back thinking it was the product and the hair dresser said it was LICE! The hair dresser who did my hair had lice and she passed it on to other people too. She caught them from her son who caught them from school. It took a long time to get rid of them."
– Sara101
2. The Hangnail From Hell
"One time I was getting a manicure, and the lady who was doing my nails accidentally gave me a hangnail somehow, but she kept dragging it backwards until she realized what she was doing and pulled it off. My finger bled for about 10 minutes, and she had to use an entire towel to soak up all the blood on my hand. The lady felt really bad about it though, the worst part was we didn't even get a refund or discount or anything, and my finger took a month to heal."
3. The Not-So-Secret Bitch
"One time when I went to a nail salon, the woman doing my nails went through to the back room speaking to her friend in Spanish about the puta’s nails she was doing. I’m Latina."
4. The Whoopsie
"I was a freshman at an out of state university and needed to find a place to get my eyebrows waxed. I went to the local mall and decided to go to a popular beauty salon chain, thinking that it may be more reputable and at least I'd heard of them. The lady sits me in a salon chair, tips it back, applies the wax, pulls off the wax strip and goes "whoops". WHOOPS!! She had waxed my whole right eyebrow off! She frantically told me that it would be free of charge (obviously!) and as I looked in the mirror I just started laughing maniacally because I knew if I didn't, I would start to cry. Needless to say, I learned how to use a eyebrow pencil and spent my first month of college drawing my eyebrow on."
5. The Vom-Fest
"My husband (at the time) was coming home from Iraq so I decided to get a lady wax which I'd never done before. But I tend to go all or nothing, so I went for a Brazilian the first time. The waxer did the whole thing in about 5 minutes and I swear to god I lost layers of skin, it hurt so badly..she's almost done and I just keep saying 'are you done yet? Are you done yet? Are you done yet?' she finally says yes and I'm like ok great, hop off the table and immediately start vomiting in the trash can in the corner. Poor lady had to leave the room so she didn't start puking too. Never again."
– Sandra Navi Young , Facebook
6. The White Birthday
"When I was turning 13, my mother took me to a hair salon to get highlights for the first time. The hairdresser had to color the entire hair first before doing the highlights and accidentally mixed the wrong color. After washing the coloring out, she took the towel off my head to reveal the color. It was bleached white blonde. (I’m a dark brunette). She couldn’t color me the hair back to the original color for at least 24 hours, so I was forced to go to school with practically white hair on my birthday."
7. The Black And Green Toe
"My friend and I went to go get some cheap pedicures one day. It was one of those walk in places, she usually goes there but I prefer not to. She takes of her shoes and dips them in the water and I see this big black and green toe.
"She must have caught some type of infection. The nail tech starts filing that toe and then suddenly the nail splits down the center. The lady wants to rip it off but my friend really doesn’t want her to do that. She literally glued the nail to her nail bed to keep it in place. The next weekend the entire nail fell off because someone stepped on her foot."
8. The Eye Goop
"Went to get my eyebrows waxed... and the lady I normally went to wasn’t around. The girl who waxed them dropped hot wax in the corner of my eye while they were closed. I had to peel wax out of my eye and eyelashes. Ouch."
9. The Individual Treatment
"I was getting a Brazilian wax and the technician answered a personal phone call mid-wax. In between the bouts of gossip (filling me in the whole time, using their actual names as if I knew who these people were), she would put the hot applicator stick, with wax on it, on my thigh so she could rip a strip off. Then she plucked what felt like 200 hairs individually instead of just going over the area again. I almost had to stop the session due to the pain."
10. The Special Attention
"I used to go to the salon regularly to get a sugar waxing. It was that only way I had ever had my bikini line done, and I always went for a Brazilian, as it was shockingly painless. One day I went to my appointment, and my regular girl had called out sick. Rather then postpone my appointment, I decided to go through with it with a different girl. Once I was in the room and ready, she told me she had never been trained on sugar waxing technique, and would have to use strip wax. I remember thinking to myself, 'Well, I guess it can't be THAT different.' It might not have been had the waxer been properly trained. And this girl had not. Two strips in, the strip and wax WOULD NOT COME OFF. I don't know if the wax wasn't hot enough or if she waited too long to rip it off, but I do know the room soon filled up with 5 additional beauticians (including one male beautician), all of whom were looking in horror at my vagina. In the end, one lady stepped up, cut out the mess, and finished the job. We laughed about it awkwardly that day, but I never went back to that salon."
11. The Sorry Student
"My very first time servicing a client as a cosmetology student went terribly wrong. I was so nervous that I accidentally over-waxed the clients eyebrows, leaving her with a very early 2000's- esqe look. When I realized what I had done, I placed a cool washcloth over her eyes to diminish the redness, and in an attempt to stall for time; advised her to relax for five minutes. I left the room, hurriedly flagged down a fellow student and begged for help. There wasn't much anyone could do at that point, but they took pity on me and offered to help explain the situation to the client. We went into the room, held the mirror up; and the client FREAKED out (rightly so). So in an attempt to soften the blow, I offered to fill in her brows with makeup. She accepted, and I gave her some pointers on how to use a brow pencil while doing so. To this day, I still feel bad about it."
– Waffuru7
12. The Trendy Cut No-one Asked For
13. The Bleach Burn
"My high school has part college classes, part cosmetology academy, so there is an operating salon at a good discount for students. I was getting my hair bleached and one of the girls got some bleach on my eye. We immediately washed it out, but I swore to never return to a student salon."
14. The Bad Bangs
"I went to get my hair done and my first wrong-doing was wanting bangs. So the lady cut bangs and I had a gap in them because of my part so thee lady wets my hair and puts a straightener on high to try to BURN my hair gap together."
15. The Distracted Disaster
"My usual hair stylist was out so I settled for another person. She was watching a soccer game while cutting my hair, complete with screaming at the TV and making commentary on the plays. She clearly wasn't paying attention to what she was doing and kept cutting and cutting and cutting. She did this for about 15 minutes. I was getting worried. I was starting to sweat from fear and anger because she just wasn't stopping, but I was 16 at the time and hadn't developed my bitch skills yet. Finally, I just said 'OK, you're done.' She gave me a confused look and said 'But I'm not finished' and I just kept repeating 'You're done, you're done.' I ended up having a legitimate bowl haircut that was easy to recover from in 11th grade (I'm lying). I never went back there again, but I did learn how to speak up and stand up for myself."
Note: Submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.