Salon At The Oaks

I have seen Lucero Saldana at this location twice. She does such a phenomenal job lifting my dark brown hair into a beautiful beige blonde.
Her technique is professional and she takes her time doing it right.
I was ready to pay well over $ 150 for the highlights and trim but it was well under that amount so I made sure to tip her well.

I found «Hair By Kerri» via a Living Social Groupon deal. For $ 40, I received a shampoo, style, haircut, deep conditioning treatment, eyebrow wax, and paraffin hand treatment. Please note that, according to the groupon, this package would normally cost $ 100.
This was my first experience with Groupons so I was a tad nervous but I decided to give it a shot. I’m happy I did. Kerri promotes herself as «Hair by Kerri» yet conducts business at the Salon At The Oaks. When I went, which is only a month ago, she had just left another local salon (reasons unknown) and was trying to drum up new business at her new location. There are no signs outside (at least that I noticed) referring to «Hair By Kerri.» I suspect that each stylist does their own business there but am unsure since I never asked.
Kerri did an AMAZING job on my hair. I have a thick head of hair (i.e. a lot of hair) yet the thickness of each hair strand is actually somewhere between medium and fine. Since I’ve moved to San Antonio, I’ve been having problems controlling my hair. My hair problems have become progressively worse the longer I have lived here and by April 2011, my hair would get so frizzy after a shower that I HAD to blow dry or use a straightening iron everyday just to look presentable. I also had difficulty achieving volume yet found that my hair would get even frizzier if hairstylists attempted to achieve volume via layering.
Kerri asked questions to assess my needs. Now, I’m not very helpful because I can only tell a stylist what I want but usually have no idea of what type of looks will get me there. I told Kerri that I don’t tend to blow dry my hair so I prefer a style that does not require a blow-​dry in order to look decent, that I need something that is clean, professional yet still youthful, and low maintenance during the week but allows versatility in styles when I feel like doing my hair. I told her that I like to curl my hair when having a night out but find that my hair no longer can keep a curl for any longer than 5 minutes. I also told her that I like my hair to stay long. Dream list, right?
Well, I guess dreams sometimes do come true because this cut is amazing. Although my daily style does not appear to be a dramatic difference, there IS a dramatic difference in ease of care. Since she’s done my hair (on May 11^th), I’ve found that my hair dries faster overnight yet has much more volume and has kept its length (hair currently falls a tad below my mid back). My hair doesn’t frizz anymore (granted, part of this was due to switching to a new shampoo that is made for humid weather but part of it was the cut) and I don’t have to run an iron through my hair to feel «decent». When I style my hair, the difference is more noticeable and I get a lot more compliments on my hair. Because she took the weight off, I can keep a curl longer. Oddly, it’s when the curl goes away that I like my hair best because my hair is still voluminous and the cut becomes much more noticeable/​striking.
The paraffin wax is something Kerri said that she usually does for her clients while they are getting their hair cut in order to make her clients feel more pampered. It worked. I usually hate getting my hair cut (I don’t like sitting around when there are other things I need to be doing) and was planning to ask her to skip the parrafin if it added any more time but she let me know that she tends to have her clients sit with the paraffin while getting a hair cut. Although it’s nowhere near a mindblowing experience, it was a pleasant touch that I greatly appreciated (especially since it satisfied my preference to multi-​task as much as possible since I was softening my hands with parafin WHILE getting my hair cut. — it made me feel more productive.) Her shampoo technique is massage-​like with no discomfort felt.
I’m not sure how I feel about the eyebrow wax job. I had a bad wax job 6 weeks prior to my appt with Kerri and, although my eyebrows had mostly grown in, I admitted to being gun shy about having them waxed again. Kerri just cleaned up my brows, barely taking anything off but I think it was in response to me telling her about being gun shy.
All in all, I definitely plan on calling her again to get my hair done.