Salon Style on the Cheap

My hair stylist quit on me!

Well she didn't quit on me so much as she left the state, she moved and I didn't find out till my salon called to confirm my appointment with some other stylist.  It only took me 7 years to find a stylist I really love, so now I'm back to square one.  The salon she was at was a bit on the high end and honestly I just couldn't see paying their prices for someone else, especially not someone who's fairly fresh out of Beauty School.  I'm still not sure who will be going my hair next, but it'll probably be a few weeks.  I'll wait till I can stand it anymore then try out a few options.  One option I'm considering is checking out one of the local Salon Academy's.  After posting on Facebook about my predicament Laurie over at Passionate Penny Pincher told me she'd had good luck with one of the local salon academy's so I'll probably give them a try.

Huntsville has several different Beauty schools now where you can go and pay a discounted fee to have a student provide your service.  Like I said, I've never gone to one of these before but I'm thinking there are some advantages and some disadvantages.  The disadvantage being that you never know what you are going to get and you are taking a pretty big risk that they could screw up your hair... but then I've found I'm taking that risk any time I go to someone new (and occasionally when going to someone I've gone to for a while).  The upside is that their are trained professional instructors looking over their shoulder which should give them a bit more incentive to "do it right".  Another upside is the cost which is usually less than half of what you'd pay in a professional salon.

Today on Living Social our local deal is $15 for a manicure & pedicure at The Salon Professional Academy.  That seemed like a really good deal to me (since it's about 1/2 what I would normally pay for one of those services alone) and I also figured it was a really good way to check out one of these local schools and see how I feel inside of it without the risk of having to carry around a bad haircut for a month or more.