Bolton mum claims ‘drunken hairdresser’ left her with the ‘worst hairstyle of 2020’

A mum has claimed a hairdresser got drunk while dying her hair and fitting a weave, which left her with a needle stuck in her scalp and the “worst hairstyle of 2020”.

Emily Hunt – a 24-year-old fellow hairdresser from Bolton – said she “wanted to die” when she realised just how terrible her hair looked after asking a former work colleague if she would touch up her roots, add some highlights and attach a £225 sew-in weave just prior to salons closing due to the second national lockdown amid the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

The hairdresser and friend – whom Emily said she’d recently reconnected with – agreed and asked for £70 to cover her time and expertise.

She also quoted £25 to apply the hair dye Emily provided and a further £45 to braid and sew in the hair piece, but Emily admitted the hairdresser then spent four-and-a-half hours at her home carrying out the work, while necking gin and bizarrely washing her own hair too.

Emily said the woman responsible for her disastrous do was someone she used to work at a salon with, and as a friendly gesture, offered the hairdresser a drink while doing her hair, but said she didn’t expect her to drink as much as she did.

The mum-of-one claimed she was also forced to do “half the work” herself – mixing the colours for her own hair, rinsing it out and even sewing some of the hair pieces together – and she said the hairdresser even demanded the money before she left.

Recalling the situation, Emily said: “We were on lockdown from Thursday, so that’s why I needed to get my hair done by someone quick.

“As I’m a hairdresser, I’ve got a trade card so I provided the medium blonde colour and hair piece. She made me fix the colour, all she did was paint me some roots on and then told me to wash it off while she was having a cig at the door. She put eight highlights throughout the top and I even took the eight foils out of my hair myself too.

“I thought it was a bit weird, I remember thinking ‘why am I even paying someone when I’m doing half of the job myself?’.”

After Emily rinsed the dye off her hair, the woman told her to partially-dry her own hair before she attached the hair piece.

Emily continued: “She told me she had to do my plaits while my hair was wet, which I found weird. She said to only dry it 20% [so] I stood in the kitchen and I blasted it myself while she went for another cig.”

The hairdresser then plaited three rows of hair to attach the sew-in weave to.

“When she’d done the first row of weave she went for a shower and washed her hair with my shampoo and conditioner then she came back to it.” Emily said.

“She did three plaits, but the bottom one was very, very low and then she didn’t leave a big enough gap to go up to the other one. They were just all very loose and I could feel the top of the hair extensions touching my ears and the back of my neck. [Usually] when that happens, that’s when you need to get it re-done, not when you’ve just had it done [and] when she was sewing the hair onto the plait she’s not secured it, she’s not even finished off the sewing and she’s left the thread hanging down with a needle.

“When she left she said ‘transfer me that money now’, I was put in a position where I couldn’t really not send it.”

After sharing pictures of the horror hairstyle on social media, the post went viral racking up nearly 12,000 likes, shares and comments, with one person aptly saying “if 2020 was a weave”.

In a desperate attempt to get the situation rectified, Emily admitted to frantically messaging a nearby hair salon and pleading for an appointment to sort it out.

She said: “I didn’t sleep properly, I kept waking up all night and I messaged a stylist at 2am saying ‘please can you fit me in tomorrow morning because you’re never going to believe it. You’re going to see this weave and you’re going to laugh your head off, honestly it’s so bad’.

“When they asked what was up with it, I replied ‘What’s right with it? When I sit on the chair you’ll see’.

“Everybody’s eyes were popping out of their heads and their jaws were dropping, all the stylists were saying it’s the worst weave they’ve ever seen’. It took no longer than an hour to fix. She did it really nicely and then cut and styled it for me, I loved it.

“When the hairdresser got to the second row, that’s when she found the needle when it pricked her finger. She couldn’t believe it was there and said ‘what the hell? Where did that come from?’

“[The original hairdresser] caught my scalp with the needle tip and it hurt. It’s got a scab on it now so it must have bled. I remember thinking, ‘oh my god that could have stabbed me in the head all night.'”

This unfortunately wasn’t the end of the ordeal though.

After sending messages to the original hairdresser for a refund and getting no reply, Emily wrote a Facebook post sharing her hair horror.

The woman got in touch and offered to fix her hair, but Emily declined and has since contacted the hairdresser’s boss and reported her to Trading Standards.

“I shared the post because she was ignoring my messages.” Emily said.

“She sent me a voice note saying ‘I’m sure I’ve done a really bad job, I’ll come back on Wednesday to sort it out [but] I said I would be out and then asked her for a refund and she started kicking off. She then started saying she should have charged me £110, which is the standard price for all of those hair treatments, and offered to refund me £30.

“I contacted her boss who said a message would be passed on, but mentioned it happened outside of work and was nothing to do with them.

“I won’t be letting her do my hair again and I’ve contacted Trading Standards.

“I just want my money back, I also don’t want anyone else getting the same treatment.”