Venus

There are not enough words to describe how greatly unsatisfied I am with this salon. Before I even begin to dive into the details of my experience, for the sake of Unilocaling I’ll begin by highlighting a few points.
1) The hairstylist sitting on station 2 on the left hand side lacks experience. I’m forgetting her name, but she’s a tall white woman in her late 40’s with red hair. So if you’re planning on getting your hair done for a fancy occasion, avoid her at all costs.
2) This same inexperienced stylist with red hair tried to rip off my friend. She tried to force her into paying her a bigger tip.
3) She fought with me because I told her my friend didn’t like the way her hair was turning out. By just looking at the expression on my friend’s face I could tell she wasn’t happy with the way her hair was turning out. So when I pointed it out, the stylist said she can’t fix it and there is nothing she can do about it. UM HELLO, is she dumb or something. Of course she can fix it. She just didn’t want to. I mean what kind of a hair stylist flat out says NO they won’t try to fix it. And for God’s sake, it was just curls for a wedding. It was something so simple.
Now if you’re still interested in hearing what happened I’ll continue by explaining in more details. My friend made an appointment to have her hair done for a wedding. My friend told the stylist exactly what she wanted (big loose curls) and showed her a picture. When the stylist started doing my friend’s hair, I could tell on my friend’s face that she was unhappy but she’s the type who would be too shy to bring it up. So when I suggested to the stylist that my friend wants big loose curls and showed her the picture again, she got really angry with me and said she’s not going to be able to do it. I was so shocked by her comment and I didn’t know what else to say. I totally wasn’t expecting her to straight up say no. When my friend’s hair was done, it looked like a ton of nappy curls. The stylist new we were unhappy but continued regardless and charged us $ 50. My friend paid her $ 60 (3 twenties) and asked her for $ 10 dollars back. Since the stylist knew we were unhappy and she was probably worried we weren’t gonna tip her (which we weren’t), she told us she didn’t have change to give back to us. I know she can easily get change from the other stylists there or from her manger. But she continued to lie to us by telling us she can’t get change from anywhere. At the end of all the mess, we ended up calling out the manager who gave us our $ 10 dollars back. So to sum it all up– she’s an inexperienced liar and an awful person, that’s all I can say.

I have been going to Venus Salon for almost 2 years. Chris is my hairdresser and is AWESOME! He takes such great care of my color and trims. He always makes time for round brush-​drying and straightening, which is huge because I HAVE ALOT OF HAIR! :)
Cynthia does my facials and waxing. The products she uses are wonderful and smell amazing. I have sensitive skin, which always made me nervous about having facials. I have never had problems here… no redness or breakouts… AMAZING! Recently, she did waxing for both myself and my husband. This was big for my husband as he’s never been able to sit through a full back waxing. He complimented her on it not hurting as bad as he thought, and his back looked and felt wonderful! My underarm and Brazilian waxing was perfect! She is the first person who was able to take care of all the hair, and I’ve been to several places, even some of the more popular ones here in Monterey. It’s been almost one week and no breakouts or irritation. YEA! Thank you Cynthia, Chris, and Venus Salon for being ROCK STARS!

I cannot say enough good things about Gina, and her talent with hair and makeup.
As a fashion designer who both curates group shows and has frequent photo shoots, I’ve been using Gina since she showed up with her assistant backstage at our August «Imagine, Recreate, Fashion!» Show and completely ROCKED the hair and makeup.
No idea was too grand for her, and she brought every dream we had in to reality.
Since then, my team has been using her exclusively for our photo shoots, with equally satisfying results. I have never met a more capable woman when it comes to the art of Hair and Makeup.
Not to mention that she’s just a wonderful person, who puts everyone around her at ease.
Thank you Gina, for all of your incredible work!!!

Chris, honestly too late to convince a very unhappy customer to return to your salon. You actually were present when I had my haircut and you barely acknowledged me … You’d better stop being defensive and try to treat your customers with dignity and respect next time.

Lynette has done updos for me for military balls. She always does a great job, I always get lots of compliments and the updos always hold for the entire evening. I will happily go back to Lynette and Venus.
Venus has a very modern feel. It’s always clean and bright. I really enjoy going there.

I think this salon overall has a great ambiance and some friendly staff. My hair turned out to be not what I wanted as my hair has been dyed so much before. But they are willing to help fix it for me.

Beautiful salon, great location, nice staff, and reasonably priced for the area. Just had six ladies get their hair done here for my wedding and everyone looked great! Communication and coordination could have been a bit less of a hassle but everyone’s hair came out nicely!
My mom and I also had our makeup done here. Overall, I liked the makeup application but I did feel like I had to put a touch more on myself to feel completely satisfied. My mom’s makeup looked really nice and she was also happy with it.

Went for Brazilian with Cynthia and what I got was a lot of missed and broken off hairs and a bunch of ingrown’s a week or two later. I’ve been getting these done for a long time and this was simply not done well. It may just not be her forte, or maybe an off day, but it was not a good job and with these it must be done right or it just isnt worth it. I might add that their website price is less than what they charge on-​site and even though she acknowledged it was wrong, and me saying that I made the appointment expecting that price there was no offer of honoring it. I paid and left irritated in more than one place.

I love Katie at Venus Salon! She did my hair and makeup for my wedding three weeks ago, and it was so beautiful! My bridesmaids and I had a great time while we were there and I would recommend her in a heartbeat.

This is an inviting salon with a modern feeling, but without the attitude of some other salons. Everyone is super nice and down to earth; plus, they do a great job and don;t charge an arm and a leg.
Erica does a great job with hair cuts and color. Cynthia is a fantastic aesthetician.

Lynette Driver did my hair for my sister’s wedding. I have very curly hair and not every hair dresser can do curly hair. Handling curly hair is a whole skill on its own. Lynette knows how to handle curly hair.
I brought in some pictures of what I wanted done and she did a great job! I’m definitely going back to her the next time I need something done with my hair.

I’ve been looking for a great hairdresser since I moved to the area over 4 years ago. Erica was referred to me by a good friend that happens to be a customer of Erica’s.
I loved Erica, she did a wonderful job and is a sweetheart!
I wont be going to anyone else now that I have gone to Erica!

Phase II of Bridal stuff.
This review is getting updated twice more
Review 1 of 3
Misty put me at ease while going over my wedding consultation. I am going in to do a trial run at the end of the month. She quickly saw my vision of what I wanted and within 30 minutes we had a style and some stuff to play with… she is super on top of appointments and getting back to you via email.

Lynette always does an amazing job with my hair! She’s the only hairdresser I trust, and she’s great with curly hair. There’s no one else I go to now that I’ve found her!
I do wish the salon had a receptionist of some sort, but maybe it’s cheaper to not have one?

My review is coming from a slightly different perspective.
I’m a photog’ that came down (2+hours) from the bay area to capture an out of town bride on her super special day. I can’t tell you anything about rates, or how satisfied the bride was, but I can say this space is really great.
The lighting is fantastic, and the smell of the next door bakery added to the experience.
Now, I understand that the guy who must’ve been the owner is trying to run a business. He got kind of weird when he came in about us photographing and the videographer guy trying to capture his footage (aka free advertisement). Look — I get it. But maybe its not completely necessary to huff and puff and roll your eyes when we are just trying help a bride feel special. All it takes is a polite «hey, can you stay over in this area» etc…
Instead, it made things very awkward.
Anyhow, the girl who did all their hair and makeup was super nice, helpful and most of all… professional.

Myself and several of my friends get their hair done by Nicole Melicia at Venus. I’ve gone to her before she joined the amazing staff at Venus and she is amazing with her creativity and her coloring skills are phenomenal! I do not color my hair but I see my friends results after she colors their hair and it always looks healthy and gorgeous with flattering colors.
I started seeing Nicole to help me with my Wedding hair styling and she has just impressed me which her creativity and honesty. Venus is an amazing atmosphere and great people in it. I highly recommend this salon and Nicole for your hair needs!

I want to start of by saying Misty was incredibly nice. She has a lovely personality and gives a wonderful head massage while she shampoos your hair.
It was $ 150 for a trim & all over dye ($ 25 more than the advertised price).
Sadly, it was not worth the expense. It was a 5 minute trim and the color was not quite what I wanted — but it was a nice enough shade. Frankly, what I left with could have been achieved by having a $ 12 trim at any barber and a $ 9 box of do-​it-​yourself dye.

The Best Brazilian Blowouts by Art!
signed by Laura Mills ;^)

Had a bad experience here… communication mishap. I called and made an appointment for a quick bang trim the day before my event. I was asked by a gentlemen on the phone to show up between 10:15 or 10:30 and someone would cut my hair while another clients hair was processing.
I did show up on time, but the other appointment showed up late, and somehow I got lost in the commotion. I don’t know who was at fault but after I left I thought about the fact that I sat there for an hour waiting for someone to notice me…
There was no front desk person, which is odd… but I don’t know how this salon works. My normal stylist was out of town so I was desperate.
I color and style my hair myself, but I needed my bangs trimmed by a professional. Gina ended up trimming my bangs and she did a great job once she figured out I was her client.
Although I planned on writing a bad review two things changed that:
1) When I arrived at the event and shared my hair-​scare with a friend she mentioned Gina had saved her hair last minute before the ball… her hair looked beautiful and I was very impressed. Gina has great skill.
2) When I got home from the ball I checked my voicemail. Gina had left me a message saying sorry explaining what happened. Gina has good manners.
I genuinely believe nobody intended to make me wait that long or be forgotten. It was a mistake and I don’t take it personally.
Better luck next time.

This review is solely for makeup and hair for a bridal group. On a positive note, the makeup they did for us was fine though someone here needs to learn how to properly apply eyelash glue. Our eyelashes looked pretty fake at the base because you could see the glue. Fortunately, the bride had her makeup done by someone else & her eyelashes came out looking amazing so it was easy to compare what a good eyelash job looked like.
Our hair experience was, unfortunately, just awful. The person who did our hair gave me a patchy, lop-​sided half-​up do that I had to undo and fix back at the hotel. And when asked to do a more structured half-​up do he created a bad 90s prom style. He was asked to do a full up-​do on another bridesmaid but after half an hour of failed attempts, she just decided to keep her hair down & basically did her hair herself.
I don’t relish saying it, but I would not ever consider recommending this place for bridal hair/​makeup to anyone.