Happy Lab

"I am neurodivergent and have been working on finding a way to dye my graying hair that wouldn't involve having to do it every two weeks due to how fast my hair grows. After seeing a stylist who blew out my hair to look like a 90 year old biddy, we ended up trying Bryan and thought perhaps we had a win. Now, I miss my 90 year old biddy blowout, because it was significantly better than what I have now. My first visit was to get my bangs trimmed, and it had been one of the worst days of my life. Bryan handled my autism really well and helped me through the experience, even giving me pigtails at the end. Sadly, that would be my one and only good experience with them. I don't have a lifetime of experience with stylists, and I don't know all the terminology and techniques, but I also didn't have any kind of fancy demands. The idea seemed simple. Take my dyed brunette to blonde, and then maintain every six to eight weeks. The first time, I had some kind of citrus chemical put into my hair that burned like acid under a heater for 30 mins. I'm still not entirely sure why we did this. Something about purifying? I was sent away and told to come back in two weeks. Two weeks later, we went back for the first color. This took about five hours, cost several hundred dollars, and was the first half of the work to be done. We were told we'd come back in two months for tinting and could lower it a shade or two as well, and it would take a couple hours. I wasn't sure what was happening but it could have been worse. The color was dark but future tinting was promised. My gray wasn't done at all which was upsetting. We went back October to have the second stage, and this ended up taking over twice as long as we had planned. It was extremely stressful, I had no sense of time, I didn't have anything to eat, I wasn't sure what was even being done because they just assumed I knew what the process was, and I ended up rushing out as soon as I could. Still, I decided to give it another try, as at least the blonde looked good and I liked it. Yesterday, I went back to have my gray treated. No cut, no other work, just tint the gray and I can come back in six weeks. Easy enough. Well, not really, because now I have a circle of brown on my scalp and sporadically across the rest of my head, because it was tinted significantly darker than the rest of my hair. The work that was done to turn my hair blonde was absolutely wasted and pointless because I'm stuck with dark hair again. Unless of course I want to start the entire process over again which would be wonderful for Bryan's account but not mine. I am not going to pay even more money and time and roll the dice on whether it gets better or worse after whatever it is they want to do to my hair this time. After sending them a picture of it, they said if I had a spare hour and a half they could probably smooth it out pretty easily, but I do not trust them to touch my hair again. Also, the whole idea was to get my hair light enough that the gray wouldn't be glaringly obvious and it wouldn't have to be dyed every two weeks. Having Bryan even out all my hair to this color would be pointless because I'd have to pay them to dye my hair every two weeks or do it myself for $10 a pop - not a hard choice now that I'm stuck with it. They told my wife that the dye was lighter than the dye that was originally used. I doubt it, but it also doesn't really matter. The dye should have matched as closely as possible my hair color, and if tints and highlights changed the color that much then GOOD! That was the POINT! Lighter color is better, and I never, ever asked them to dye my hair brown. Pictures attached but after my experiences I'll be taking care of my own hair color from now on and see a basic barber for trimming split ends once a year and hopefully that doesn't end in this kind of disaster either, or I'll end up just cutting all my hair off and giving up on it all. I just wanted a few more years before looking truly old without having to use a ton of chemicals constantly. Now I'm kind of just stuck."

"the only human in the world i trust with my hair. weather you just need a cut or want to go into full coloring - this is this the place to be! Bryan is so personable; a safe space for all the tea, jokes, and stories to tell."

"So I had originally scheduled an appointment with another salon in Dulles but to come find out the day before my appointment they can’t find time to trim my pixie cut and color my hair. I told them to cancel my entire appointment, thanked them and hung up. The next place I scheduled tried to talk me out of me getting what I wanted and told me this is what we will do. Okay yeah Um so I kept looking. That is when I found Bryan and when I talked to him for the first time he listened to what I wanted done and was extremely interested in hearing what I had to say and gave me so many options of what I was talking about. He actually cares about each individual he does hair for and takes the time to make sure it’s what you want. He is very knowledgeable and experienced in hair care and after 20 years of searching I have finally found my permanent hair dresser!! Go see Bryan!! He will not disappoint you at all!! !!UPDATE!! August 17, 2022 - I had booked my follow up with Bryan to get my hair fixed from a butcher from another salon (I won’t be seeing any other hairstylist besides Bryan for now!) and he did another amazing job trimming up my hair. Please see the new head shot below where my hair is more deep blue. Bryan is young but so worldly experience in hairstyling & color. I’ve been to so many ppl across the country in my 37 years of life & Bryan is the only person to do such a fantastic job. He’s passionate & loves what he does. He actually listens to you when you’re explaining to him what you’re envisioning for your new look to be. He nails it every time. That has been the most difficult task in my past with other stylists. But Bryan is the best around. Please make an appointment with him as it is by appointment only which is very easily done online. You seriously will want to keep coming back for every follow up appointment he’s that great at what he does."

"Bryan has taken me through several different hair transformations and never disappoints! I usually give him some creative license to do what he thinks is best with the color because that is his specialty! But he listens to what I want and finds a way to perfectly incorporate it in a fun way. My hair never feels damaged and when my color does fade, it fades super cute so I never have a bad hair day."