Fashion + Beauty

Saturday, November 28, 2009

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Would You Sue a Salon for $50,000 if They Screwed Up Your Hair?

Time to play armchair jury, and have I got a doozy of a case for you. A woman in Oregon, who has been bleaching her hair for 25 years, is suing her salon for $50,000 because her hair started snapping off after her most recent bleaching session.

The woman, Sarah Jane Ward, blames an inept stylist and says she suffered humiliation, depression and had to pay for hair extensions. (She should have checked out this video on doing hair extensions at home, would have saved her some cash.)

The salon claims that Ward ignored a stylist's recommendations and damaged her hair with teasing and flat ironing (I wonder if she was using one of these flat irons?). They also say that since she didn't go bald or suffer a mental health crisis, they shouldn't be responsible.

While we can't give a verdict (we'll leave that up to the jury … and any of you who'd like to comment below), we can give some advice on keeping color-treated hair from turning into a disaster like this:

Avoid heat styling whenever you can and don't use scorching hot water in the shower.

When you do heat style, always use a product to protect hair (like one of these).

Stay out of the sun (or wear a hat when exposed to sun). And look for hair products that contain SPF and are formulated for color-treated hair.

Wash hair less -- it will keep hair from drying out and help color last longer. When you do shampoo, make sure it's with a quality product, like one of these. And always follow up with a good conditioner.

Leave a weekly deep conditioning treatment (these ones are fantastic) on strands for at least 15 minutes to allow it to reach down to your hair's cuticle.

Use a large-toothed comb in the shower while deep conditioning to distribute the product evenly through hair.

Image: The Oregonian
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From the Community…

Comments 101-104 of 104
  • LiLa's Avatar
    Posted by LiLa Thu May 14, 2009 3:15pm PDT

    This is ridiculous. If she gets any money for this, it's just rewarding stupidity!

    How about the woman allegedly suing Sally Hansen for some absurd amount (in the 10s of millions range) for HER dumb ass using hot wax that was boiling over in her microwave? Excuse me, but why would you, upon seeing wax BOILING over in its container, proceed to actually put it on????

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  • C's Avatar
    Posted by C Thu May 14, 2009 5:18pm PDT

    Only if it looked like Kate Gosselin's hair....haha!

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  • LauraM's Avatar
    Posted by LauraM Fri May 15, 2009 11:08am PDT

    As a hair stylist... If it were something that I personally was doing or did to make it fall out, for instance overlapping over previously colored/bleached hair (you should ONLY do the roots, ESPECIALLY with bleaching), or if I used too strong of peroxide with the bleach (you should only use 20 volume peroxide when you are applying on the scalp... anything higher than that can cause chemical burns and hair falling out) or just leaving it on too long (although with the bleach nowadays, you'd have to leave it in for like, HOURS before it would get THAT bad)... in those cases I would be surprised if I and/or my salon *wasn't* sued.

    Now, if it's a matter that this woman wasn't taking care of it properly (using too hot of styling tools without proper styling products, or proper shampoos/conditioners to protect colored/bleached hair, etc) then it's HER fault for sure. We recently had a lady (a regular) in our salon (she was a regular client to my salon's manager) and when she came in the last time for her color, she asked why her hair color was fading so quickly (she colors her hair a very very dark brown, like one level lighter than black, and it was fading to a medium brown within a couple weeks... almost a 4 or 5 level difference in darkness) and my manager asked her what she was using to wash/condition her hair, if she was using something for color protection... and she was using dish soap. DISH soap. That is HORRIBLE for hair... I mean, there's a reason they make different soaps for different purposes... and dish soap is called dish soap for a reason, just like laundry soap is for laundry and body wash is for your body, and... well you get the idea.... and hair shampoo is for HAIR.

    Now that we have this lady using SHAMPOO & conditioner, I'm sure she'll find that her hair color isn't fading as quickly. Nice lady... but no brains, no headaches, I guess, lol...

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  • Caleb's Avatar
    Posted by Caleb Mon May 25, 2009 1:47am PDT

    The main thing is the salon should have made her sign a waiver .. When you have been bleaching that long you should go into your salon and at least get a deep deep condionter once a week ... If you want that beach blond hair take care of it ... As far as the crazy lady if she did'nt sign a waiver a bet the salon or stylist is liable.

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