I went to Charlie Hodges at Salon Sovay after doing extensive research on Citysearch and other Web sites, on which both he and the salon had gotten great reviews. I needed to update my highlights and get a trim, since I was trying to grow my hair out. To start with, the Salon is in a great location and has a very comfortable vibe - same with Charlie. He has his own private room, which is great, and he's very personable. However, that's where the good things end.
Charlie told me that he couldn't do what I wanted with my hair for a variety of reasons (none of which had ever prevented my previous stylist from turning out excellent results), but we agreed on an intermediary step that we could develop into something better in the future. Ugh. Instead of trimming my hair, he cut huge chunks out of random sections. After blow-drying, he had to be pressed repeatedly to use a straightener, even though it was impossible to see what the cut was like without him doing so.
When it was finally dry and straight, it was obvious that he had not let the color process long enough - there was a clear dark halo around the top of my head. After pointing this out, he agreed to correct the color the next week. I went back in, but he did not correct his earlier error - instead, he brightened ALL of my hair. It is now way blonder than I ever wanted. Furthermore, it looks horrifically fake - huge sections were left untouched, while others are verging on platinum. If you put it in a ponytail, it looks streaky and dirty.
I couldn't do anything else about the color without doing serious damage to my hair, but the cut was a whole different problem. In the two days after my cut, three friends sat me down to tell me how uneven it was. It was true - one side was at least 3/4 of an inch shorter than the other. I would have gone back and had him fix it, but at that point it was a taste issue - there was no way that looked good, and I didn't want to hear additional excuses about why he couldn't do things that other stylists could and would do in a heartbeat (like an even cut). I ended up paying $80 to get the cut corrected at another salon (Waterstone Aesthetics, it's great). So much for growing my hair out - they had to cut another 1 1/2 inches off to get rid of Charlie's chunks.
Pros: Peaceful, Reasonably priced
Cons: Uneven cut, bad color, no accountability
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