There are some horrible stories in the news about catching staph infections and having allergic reactions in beauty salons so I thought I would go to the trouble to write a bit about how to choose a salon that has some integrity.
First of all it is probably a good idea for you to check out a beauty salon before you make an appointment. It doesn’t matter how famous someone is who goes there or what your friends say. A girlfriend can lead you astray because she may not want to give her real beauty secrets away and tell you where she really goes to get her nails or hair done. Your own eyes, sense of smell and judgment will tell you if it is a clean salon and if it is the place for you.
The salon should also be affordable. The best way to find about the treatments at a beauty salon is to ask for a breakdown of their rates and their treatments, which should be readily available in a brochure that they hand out to customers. If a beauty salon does not have this kind of brochure then they are probably not reputable and may change their prices at whim. It also means that they probably change their staff all of the time.
Another good way to find highly rated salons in your area is to look through the services offered listings in local high-end magazines. Often these city style magazines have rating systems that can help you choose a quality high-end beauty salon that you can afford. However avoid reviews where it looks like the Salon that has paid for an ad as the review might be rigged in its favors.
In general it is probably a good idea to avoid beauty salons that are in the more run down areas of town. You also probably have less insurance against an infection or fried hair as the result of a bad perm job if you go to a beauty salon that is a hole in a wall or run out of someone’s home. These cottage industry style beauty salons often cut corners to pay the rent by doing things like not sterilizing their tools, reusing tools and using old product. This can be a recipe for disaster for your looks as well as make you ill.
The best beauty salon is usually located in a more upscale end of town or in a shopping center. Usually they are chains that have some kind of quality control or cleanliness policy in place. As is true with many things in life, the more you pay, the better you will be treated. So in this sense the rates of a beauty salon can tell you a lot about the quality of service that you can expect.
However one drawback of using the more expensive salons is sometimes they have real attitude. Remember that you don’t have to pay money to be treated in an arrogant or insulting way by some guy who thinks he is the next judge of America’s Top Model or Queer Eye show.