Except for getting my arms waxed, I’ve sworn off local spas for any kind of beautifying treatments. Why? I’m not sure if it’s a small town type of thing, or what, but my experiences frequenting local spas have been nightmares. Here are three examples. I’ll debut my fourth nightmare example in an upcoming post because it’s just so bad, it deserves its own blog. Out of respect, I’ll leave out the names of the spas.
1. I purchased a high-end hair product at a Santa Cruz destination. Went home, used a dollop of product and my hair promptly fell flat. Clearly this wasn’t the product for me. The salon had a store credit policy that if you weren’t satisfied with a product, you could exchange it for another. So a few days later I took it back, hoping to try out another product. The receptionist was a, well, a not nice lady. For the next 30 minutes I stood there and argued with her over the dollop of product that I had used. She thought it was too large of a dollop and wasn’t interested in offering me store credit. She brought in another colleague to examine the missing dollop of product and they went around and around about it. What a nightmare, and a rather humiliating experience. I left, then called and complained. Then I wrote a letter to the owner of the store. No one apologized. The service was lousy. I’ve never been back, and frankly, if someone asks about this salon, I’ll gladly share that it offers the worst customer service in town.
2. I had been going in to my favorite hole-in-the-wall spa for years to get my arms waxed when one day an aesthetician cornered me in the waiting area and berated me for an article that I had written in the newspaper about skin care. It was an article that explained that I’m not a fan of facials. Somehow, she took this personally and proceeded to lecture me on this, and explain that her staff wanted to talk with me about this. Granted, that would all be fine—if she had called me at work. But this was my alone time. My personal time to get a waxing treatment, not get bugged about work issues. I’ve never returned.
3. So then I decided to try out a new place to get my arms waxed. The spa was adorable and I enjoyed the experience (even though it’s painful to get your arms waxed). But then, the newly minted aesthetician dropped wax on my jeans. So not cool. She should have put a towel all over my lap, or had my arms in a position where the wax couldn’t get on my clothes. She was new—very green at her job. But, I haven’t been back.
Feel free to share your spa nightmares here.
