Royalty Beauty Bar

Taylor Somerville

18 reviews

★★★

October 8, 2020

This review is not intended to state anything negative about the stylist or service quality, but is meant to provide insight to future new customers regarding the pricing structure. My experience with Tara was overall good, the only complaints I had were that she arrived late for the appointment due to an oversight in the scheduled time which she did apologize for and offered a slight discount towards a future visit. There were also a few interruptions during the service, which were not ideal given that I ended up needing to take the entire day off of work for this appointment and would like to have gained some of this time back. It is important to note that a client's time is just as valuable as a stylist's and this should be kept in mind for compensation when issues arise (ie. if a stylist can charge a cancellation or late fee, a client should receive credit for a late stylist/service interruption on the DAY OF service as opposed to on a future service) I recently moved to Charlotte from Houston and was in need of a new stylist. I am new to extensions, but had previously visited a top salon in Houston that specialized in microlinks that at the time seemed costly, but after receiving services with Tara I am realizing that my old salon had a much more realistic pricing structure. This is especially ironic with Houston being a higher demand market for this service and a major city vs Charlotte where demand is much lower. For context, I paid 62% of what I paid at Royalty at my previous location for installation AND hair plus a protein treatment, and trust me when I say this was a highly reputable salon with top quality work. When I sat for my initial consult at Royalty, I was not fully versed on the pricing structure for this particular service (we had discussed 3 different options, but I was not given an estimation of how many rows I might require since I had only ever paid flat rate for a whole head). Tara's flat rate is inclusive of only 5 rows which seems unrealistically low for the very high price of $375 (Does anyone ever only require 5 rows?). There is $50 charged per additional row, and I ended up receiving an extra 7 rows which cost $250 in addition to the base $375, plus an additional take down charge to remove my previous installation (this rate was more reasonable but still higher than other salons in the area). My total service cost was $800 and I was completely shocked after not having had a full understanding of how many rows I would require up front since every stylist installs differently. In my opinion, given that I provided my own hair for the service rather than purchasing directly from Tara, this cost was astronomically high (this is the better portion of a month's rent). I did express concern to Tara via text and was offered an explanation of the cost breakdown, but am still left feeling misinformed about the cost expectation on the front end during my consult (I should have received a row count and an accurate total cost estimate). Tara does awesome work and deserves adequate compensation, however $800 for extension installation WITH client provided hair is frankly mind-blowing. I only wish I had known this information upfront in order to have made a more informed decision, but wanted to put this out for anyone considering microlink extension service as you will definitely want to shop for comparison. My hair turned out great, but pricing is WAY too high for this service!