A salon has responded to an angry customer who claims she was given the “world’s sh*****t eyebrows” after a recent treatment.
Melissa Ryan, from Orpington, visited Cavendish Aesthetics in Murston Business Centre to get lip fillers on March 9.
Unfortunately for her, while she was at the salon she felt “pressured” into undergoing brow lamination by a member of staff who “wasn’t fully qualified”.
Brow lamination is a hugely popular new beauty treatment which involves trimming, dying and then coating the eyebrow hairs in a relaxant solution before carefully arranging them.
When set, the treatment can make eyebrows seem bushy and groomed for up to eight weeks.
Melissa, 21, posted some snaps of her dodgy brows to social media in a furious post which has been liked thousands of times.
The salon owner, Amanda Cavendish, has now hit back claiming that she is receiving a “constant barrage of abuse”.
Amanda, 56, claims that she has received over 700 nasty messages since the post went viral.
The Ashford salon owner has reported the messages to the police, for harassment.
Melissa’s post said: “As embarrassing as it is to post this to my own socials, so everyone can see what I looked like today.
“I’m probably going to go viral for having the world's sh*****t eyebrows due to this woman, but here goes.
“You can laugh react all you want but you wouldn’t be laughing if it was you.”
She continued to write a long post describing the situation and said: "Amanda has dealt with the situation highly unprofessionally.
"I had my lips done today, they were fine I couldn’t fault her on that.
"Then while having my lips done I was offered to have my eyebrows laminated and tinted, I felt a bit put on the spot as you do when people try to up sell, but asked if this treatment would suit me and both Amanda and her colleague (short blonde hair) agreed I’d look great, so I agreed to have it.”
Melissa went on: "My eyebrows were completely unsatisfactory and nothing like the photos that are advertised on social media.
"I was left looking like a complete fool. I probably could’ve done a better job myself blindfolded.
Amanda, who has a level seven masters in aesthetics, eventually offered Melissa a refund, but the young client did not go to the salon to collect the £25 and wanted a bank transfer instead.
Melissa reports that the cost of her journey from Orpington would render the refund redundant.
When we looked at the cost, the price of a train ticket was £12.40.
In a text to the young woman, Amanda wrote: “Can you come in tomorrow and get your £25?
“You don’t need a patch test for brow lamination – do not tell me how to do my job.
“You are actually being rude now, don’t try this with your lips, I won’t entertain it.”
She continued: “You can have your money back. Please do not come back to me for anything else.”
Amanda told KentLive: “It’s not a good idea for me to be responding to bullying, hate speech, vulgarity on social media but I do want to put my side across. I’ve had over 700 vile harassing, hateful things said about me.
“Staff are worried that someone will come in and cause problems, I’ve had clients cancel today. I don't want to have anyone here put at risk."
The salon-owner said that her regular customers have rallied round the business, which employs three people.
Amanda said: “If you look, before the last few days, I do not have one bad review.
“I’m very well known in Ashford and, if anything, I hope this will raise my profile.
“I don't pressure anyone into doing anything in my salon and my clients will tell you that.”
She says that she explained to Melissa that the procedure would be done by someone in training.
The young client denies this is true.
Amanda added: “All I said at the time was, ‘we do brow lamination, you’ve got lovely big brows, would you like to have your brows laminated?’
“I explained that we were looking for models at the moment, for someone in training, and asked if she would be happy to help.
“She said ‘go on then why not’ – those were her words.”
Melissa was booked in for an hour later and did some shopping in the interim.
After the lamination was complete, Amanda explained that the staining of the skin was normal and would wash off in 24 hours when Melissa could get her brows wet.
Amanda said: “I asked ‘are you happy with what we’ve done? Because I feel you need to have your brows thinned out in the arch area'.
“And she said she didn’t want any off because someone had over-plucked them previously.
“We agreed on this but I did say, ‘next time you come back to us you need to think about having your brow arch shaped’.”
Melissa claims that her skin became irritated and itchy after the treatment and believes she should have been offered a patch test.
Amanda insists that her products, made by company BOM, are “very mild” and only require patch testing if the client has pre-existing skin sensitivity or allergies.
She admits that the photos do not show perfect brows.
Amanda said: “Looking at them I would say that she’s justified in what she’s saying.
“However, I said to her the staining from the tint will wash off.
“And frankly, she had every opportunity when we showed her in the mirror to say she hated it.
“The way this has been gone about is totally wrong.”
Melissa noted: “I’ve tried to contact Amanda but haven’t gotten anywhere, this whole situation didn’t have to get out of hand like this if she didn’t allow unqualified people to do work.
“She hasn't taken any sort of responsibility for what went on in her salon or what her employee did, she blocked my number so I couldn’t contact her that’s why I took to social media.
“I haven’t even received any sort of apology or my refund, like I said I live in London, I only went there for my treatment.”
Daily Star Online spoke to Melissa further for exclusive comment.
Melissa said: "I found out [about her] through one of my old school friends, I’d seen the work they had done and it looked so nice so she recommended her. But, I literally just went there for lips.
"I understand trying to up-sell but in this industry unless you are fully confident in what you are doing you shouldn’t be trying to up-sell.
"Amanda has said that this was explained to me that Joelyella was training but this was not explained to me at all. If that was the case I would not have let her go near my face, as it’s my face – you can cover tattoos but your face is your face."
Melissa noted that the salon were running a special on the lamination service, where it was priced at £20.
She believes that she should not have been charged £5 more than this to be treated by a trainee.
Melissa said: "As soon as I uploaded a picture on to Snapchat to ask how I could get this off of my face an hour after having it on, (only supposed to be on for 10-15 mins max) my friend messaged me asking if I had a patch test, I said no because I hadn’t.
"I was completely unaware that I needed a patch test or to sign a disclaimer."
In regards to Amanda's public response, the young woman added: "I struggle with confidence and self-esteem issues and when they offered it to me I thought well I’m treating myself today for once."
Melissa said: "I still feel like Amanda has had the upper hand on me as she’s still made her company out to be good.
"But the way they’ve spoken to me and several other people claiming we are online trolls is actually so wrong."
The 21-year-old said she recognised that her social media post had blown up.
She said: "I understand my Facebook post had gotten a bit out of hand, but if anything people were actually siding with me and supporting me and it did make me feel a lot better about the whole situation, knowing that people were on my side in all of this.
"I feel as though Amanda has gone down the victim route, but really I praise and thank anyone who has stood up for me and from all the comments and messages I have received from people."
