Four Foils Lead to a 911 Call

The first time that I have ever had to call the police regarding a client happened this week.  It was traumatizing.

The situation

1) Sixteen year old "Spanish?" teenage girl wants haircut and some partial highlights.  (Four foils)

2) I had limited time, and the teenager's mom was working within a budget as well.

3) As a compromise, I offered to perform the haircut and place four foils to achieve blonde highlights.  No styling.  Teenager would have to leave wet.  I was accommodating this service as a courtesy to the mom.

4) I already had another client on a fixed time schedule due within a hour and fifteen minutes of the start of this "emergency haircut and partial blonde highlights" service.

5) Both mom and daughter loved the haircut that I performed so much that while the foils were processing, I booked the mom with a separate haircut appointment the following week.

6) I used a 30 volume lightener for safe lifting of the hair in the four foils, but a "fire engine red" was surfacing.  The mom then admits that they had been experimenting with red color and then they covered it with a dark color.  The teenager had been flat ironing her hair a lot.  So the red color was resistant to lifting. So I had to rinse and shampoo out the lightener after I felt like the lifting action stopped working.

7) I gave them the option of drying the hair while I finish up my client who had a pre-set appointment so that I can try to lift the hair past the red with a fresh batch of lightener at 30 volume or I could tone into a light brown.

8) They elected to let me finish my other client and try to lift the hair past the red color.

9) The hair lifted some more, but too much red was still left in the highlights so I toned it too neutralize the red while still keeping the highlights visible.  The results were a gorgeous light brown with some dimension to it.  There was some blonde in it, but due to the red color being baked into the teenager's hair from too much heat from flat ironing, it was not the true blonde that she was envisioning.

10) She was uncompromising and the whole family of five came to my salon.  I heard alot of foreign language was being spoken.  The parents were conversing outside the salon.  I was becoming on edge of the dynamics of the situation that was escalating so I asked that all speaking in foreign language cease, and I asked the older brother to ask their parents to come back into the salon.

11) The mom comes in says that I am racist for not allowing them to speak in their language.  She takes the cape off of the daughter after I have given her a beautiful haircut and glazed her highlights to blend in with her hair- yet still remain visible.

12) I asked her to pay me. She refused. I felt that she and her husband were plotting not to pay me while conversing outdoors. I mentioned that I can call the police. She mentioned that she would call the police. She still refused to pay.  I asked them to leave. Then I immediately locked the salon doors and called 911.

The Police was able to call them and had them to come back to pay me the money that they agreed upon. They really owed me more money for the "color correction" service that I had to perform because they had been playing with haircolor which lead to the difficulties that I ran into.  

I had used so much excessive product, "overtime," and expertise that I deserved some payment.  In addition, I kept the teenager's hair healthy and delivered a great haircut and some nice highlights.  I was proud of my work even though the teenager's hair would not achieve the blonde look without potentially damaging her hair.  She was a new client and a teenager.  I was not going destroy her hair trying to achieve blonde highlights after she had baked red color into it.

As I told the police, for the whole family of five to show up speaking another language and not offering to a least compensate me for a haircut was absolutely unacceptable to me.  I had been doing hair for ten years, and I have never had to call the police on a client before.

Well, there is a first time for everything. I have tried to figure out what I could have done differently, but I did everything that I knew to do.  For example, when painting a wall, if the wall has a lot of layers of paint, then repainting the wall can more difficult depending on the final color that you are looking for.  It helps to know that a wall has layers of paint before you start a paint project, but you improvise as needed.

In today's society, everything is becoming a "right now" "my way" attitude. Respect should be given, but if it is not, it can be enforced.

I am hoping that I never have to call 9-1-1 again.