What happens at a free hair consultation, and what to ask any salon

At Hair Shak Salon Miami the consultation is free, and it comes before anything else. You sit down, Shak looks at your hair with you, and you leave knowing what your hair can take, what the work would cost and how long it would take. Nothing gets booked until you decide.

Why it comes first

Most of what decides a hair appointment doesn't show up in a photo on your phone. How thick your hair is, what has been on it before, how it falls once it's dry. The consultation is where that gets looked at, by the person who would actually do the work. There's one stylist here, so that person is always Shak.

What happens in it

Shak looks at your hair as it is, before anything is washed or wet. He'll ask what you do with it in the morning and what you've stopped doing because it never worked, because that tends to decide a cut or a color more than a picture does.

Then you hear it straight. Whether what you want suits your hair, what it costs, and whether something needs to happen first. Sometimes that's a test strand, which we always do when someone is going from black to brown. Sometimes it's a treatment before more color, if the ends are already struggling.

What to bring

• Photos of looks you like, and one or two you don't
• The names of anything that's been on your hair in the last two years, even if you only remember the color of the box
• An honest idea of how much time you spend on your hair on a normal morning

Five questions to ask any salon

These are worth asking wherever you go, not only here.

1. Who will actually do my hair? Some salons pass you between an assistant and a stylist.
2. Will I know the price before you start?
3. Do you do a strand test when it's a big change?
4. For smoothing treatments: which product do you use, and can I see its Safety Data Sheet?
5. What happens if I'm not happy with the result? Our answer is in our refund policy: tell us within 7 days and we look at it.

Booking one

Call +1 305-494-7128, or leave your details on the contact page and we call you back. We're at 300 Alton Road in South Beach, open Sunday to Thursday 10am to 6pm and Friday 10am to 2pm. Parking is free for salon clients.