Aveda Institute, Covent Garden

A competent Aveda hairdresser recommended that a male friend of mine in his 70s go to a particular male hairdresser for a haircut, that he was 'great'. My friend looks better in longer hair and told the male hairdresser he wanted it shaped and trimmed only, and to keep the length, apart from some shortening at the top, and to keep the fullness at the back and on the sides so that the hair didn't stick out sideways above his ears. He had taken nearly a year to grow the hair so that it had only just finally stopped sticking out sideways round his ears. His naturally wavy, thick hair is unusually attractive, as most men his age don't have hair! Well the hairdresser put paid to that and used a razor to shave off all his waves at the back into a ragged layering so that the back now sticks straight out all over. He then cut the hair extra short, close to his scalp, just above his ears over which he has let a top layer fall - and already that top layer is sticking out sideways ABOVE his ears. My friend didn't pay attention and fell asleep during the haircut. When he opened his eyes, he was shocked that the hairdresser had done the exact opposite of what he had explicitly asked him to do. When he asked the hairdresser why he had done the opposite of what he had asked, the hairdresser said oh it would have looked 'crazy' that way. My friend was so shocked at the hairdresser's arrogance that he just paid and got out of there asap, vowing to never set foot in there ever again. The irony is that now my friend DOES look 'crazy' in the cut the hairdresser gave him - like a 6-year-old boy's hairdo, with the longest hair on top, sides that stick out sideways and layered hair at the back that sticks straight out (as the hairdresser wanted to 'get rid of the waves'). It is a variation of Kim Jong Un's atrocious haircut. Plus it sticks up on top at the back so that now his thinning crown shows. This is the second hairdresser I've sent my friend to there and I have now come to the conclusion that they haven't a clue what they are doing. I had one good haircut from one hairdresser there myself and she left the salon afterward and no one would tell me where she had gone. They only seem to want to sell overpriced products all the time, things to put in your hair and on your face. Do NOT go there for a haircut. Some colourists there are good at what they do though..

I've just just received the worst haircut I've ever had and paid £60 for the priviledge at the flagship Covent Garden Aveda Institute. The stylist, let's just call her J, asked one, quick perfunctory question about how I wanted my hair and then proceeded to take off nearly all of my hair in the back -- where I could not see -- then hapzardly cut into the sides. It looks terrible and is now too short to go somewhere else for a corrective cut. It will be two months before I feel good about the way I look again. My advice if you are thinking of going to Aveda Salon in Covent Garden -- don't.