Saks

Staff were rude and unwelcoming, had to go elsewhere to have cut and highlights redone as such a rubbish job, lost another client here due to staff talking about clients that just left, rude rude very rude

I’ve only ever had a great experience at Saks. I am always able to get the best haircut at quite a good price, and have been having haircuts there for about 3 years now.
In my opinion, the products they stock are great — I only use RedKen hair styling products, if I can help it!
Hospitality is great.
The salon itself is lovely and the staff there are great — I even got a Christmas Card off my stylist!

As anyone who read my review of Creation Studies will know, I’m certainly not a fan of hairdressing and so it was with some difficulty that I tried to answer my stylist’s question: ‘When was the last time you had your hair cut?’
‘Six months?’ I threw out into the awkward pause, praying that her response wouldn’t be too mocking, and that she’d be dignified enough not to expose my lies to the rest of the salon. I wondered if allowing my best friend to drunkenly saw at my locks with a blunt pair of scissors really constituted a session.
Initially, she seemed nice enough about my obvious extension of the truth. But gradually, what I perceived to be sensitivity in my hairdresser gradually morphed itself into obliviousness. Nice as she was, she seemed unable to comprehend that I’m just not the type who prioritises my hair. Consequently, she spent the next half an hour or so trying to convince me that I needed to spend well-​nigh £30 on a set of shampoo and conditioner, quite the task when you consider I’d only entered Saks because of a discount on Student Beans and had been using 51p Boots 2-​in-​1 for the last few months (cue actual, audible gasps!).
Despite all this, the cut was nice and just about as stylish as a girl like me can carry. I’m lucky I avoided the hairdressers attempts to dye it chocolate brown with purple streaks, this might have tipped it over the edge.
If you care about your hair, I most certainly would recommend this place. Just make sure you spend some time practising how to say ‘no’ in the mirror first. Or, to kill two birds with one stone, complete this exercise throughout your appointment. It won’t look weird, I promise.
URBAN CHALLENGE: Claim you make your own shampoo

This Cardiff branch of Saks is good in terms of location, the salon’s décor is okay, and even the hair cut I had here was fine — but I still haven’t been back since that first visit. This is because my hair dresser clearly didn’t want to be there. She was sulky and aloof at first, then struck up a conversation with me half way through cutting my hair — only to tell me she was hoping to change careers. This is not something I want to hear from the person who’s cutting my hair! It made me nervous. Very nervous.
Her colleagues around the salon looked similarly miserable and disenchanted with their work — and frankly I don’t want to spend my hard-​earned cash, or an hour of my life on watching miserable people.
So, despite its convenient city centre location, and generally cheaper prices than the likes of Ken Picton or Toni & Guy, this place just didn’t sell itself to me. The hair cut was fine, but the experience wasn’t.

Yes, Saks is a chain salon. But, sometimes I think this can be a good thing. When you’re looking for somewhere to trust with your new do, in general, I shall repeat, in general chain salons have a higher standard of training awarded to their employees.
Saks is quite an expensive little hairdressers in the centre of Cardiff, so my expectations were quite high when first I went here. I had last been to Toni & Guy, and wanted the same service for £10 cheaper. Fortunately I wasn’t disappointed. The cut and style were both very good, and the staff were very polite. I was offered a glass of wine, and although I had tea instead, I was quite impressed by this.
The reason I’m giving this salon only three stars is because of a certain attitude I noticed with the staff. Although they were very lovely to my face, they were rather unsubtle in their discussions of previous customers. This only led me to wonder what they were going to say about me as soon as I’d left the premises. A little bit of a negative vibe to an otherwise good experience.

i really wasn’t blown away by my results from this salon. I thought from the name I would get a good quality cut from well trained, polite staff. In reality I found the staff cold and rude and talked really indiscreetly about clients that had just left. Thankfully I only went in for a £10 model cut, I would have been very disappointed if I had paid full price or had to have stayed for a lengthy amount of time.
If you’re more concerned about saving money than receiving top notch customer service, then this place in fine — just don’t pay full price!