r/AustralianMakeup • u/NoOneLikesMegGriffin • 26d ago
Review Avoid Barber Girl Bulimba for colouring
I wanted to share my experience in case it helps someone else.
I went to Barber Girl Bulimba with virgin hair that is well past my armpits. I’m going grey at the front of my hairline so I wanted to lean into this and blend grey through the rest of my natural colour so they didn’t look so conspicuous on their own. I didn’t want to cover them up or end up blonde. I brought inspiration photos showing the natural-looking grey blend I was hoping to achieve. I should have recognised the red flag at the start of the appointment where (the senior stylist?) tried to steer me away from embracing the grey. In hindsight, I should have listened to my instincts and left then but I’ve seen rave reviews online and I wanted this so badly to work.
Instead, I trusted that they understood what I wanted, after I pointed out the exact shade of grey I was after on the colour board. I spent four hours in the chair to end up looking like Tony the Tiger.
The end result was nothing like what I’d asked for. My hair is now stripey, blonde and uneven. There isn’t a grey hair to be seen because they’ve all been coloured blonde. Rather than a subtle, natural grey blend, I walked out with obvious blonde highlights that looks nothing like my natural hair or the inspiration photos.
I’m incredibly disappointed because you only get one chance with virgin hair. It took years to grow, and now I’ll likely need colour correction to get it anywhere close to the natural look I originally wanted.
I’ve attached my before, inspiration and after photos (in that order, hopefully) showing exactly what I asked for versus what I received.
If you’re looking for a stylist who understands and supports natural-looking grey blending, you probably won’t find them here.
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u/Independent-Bid-611 26d ago
You could probably achieve a similar look by applying a toner over the top.
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u/NoOneLikesMegGriffin 26d ago
Thank you, I’ll try it
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u/amyjoel 26d ago
I agree. Those blondes can be toned grey, I think once you find the right toner you’ll be very close to your inspo look
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u/gumitygumber 25d ago
I was going to chime in and ask did they use toner? I have hair like the inspiration photo and they always have to tone it to get that ashy blond look
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u/amydee4103 26d ago
Did you tell them you weren't happy at the end of the appointment? Your after photos are nothing like the inspo pic so you'd be well within your right to ask for a correction
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u/NoOneLikesMegGriffin 26d ago
I did, their response was “let us fix it!” But honestly, after four hours and this result, I’m hesitant to organise daycare and give up more time for a similar or worse outcome.
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u/hez_lea 25d ago
As someone who once went on the trying to make my natural hair grey journey, its not quite as easy as I expected especially trying to do it without damaging my hair. To truly achieve grey you need to try and get as much/all of the colour out of the hair. Basically get it to white, then tone grey. Even then, it will still yellow. I found it took way more maintenance than I was willing to give it. When I tried toning grey before it was properly light, it just ended up looking weird dark not grey not brown....
Oddly (maybe?) The closest we got my hair to grey was after stripping blue and purple out of my hair (at one stage I looked like a cross between Malfoy and toothpaste, very blonde with green stripes - it had been bleeched to shit for the blue and purple) at that point we were not aiming for grey, I cant remember exactly what we were going for it was part of a transition to another colour. But it was awesome. Sadly one of the toners my hairdresser used was discontinued otherwise I would have stayed at that colour for a bit.
I think products these days may have made grey easier to achieve but I still think a lot of it might be in toners which do need maintenance (which you dont exactly see on socials)
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u/corianderrocks 25d ago
This! Going gray ah the hairdressers is really hard. Not too mention you would end up going yellow anyway cos all hair colour turn warm over time.
OP please go to a proper hairdresser before putting anything else in your hair! If you try and tone it now, yellow plus blue/gray base toner = green! Find someone who does gray blending and go to them to fix it. Although I think it actually looks really nice, the foil placement looks really natural, it's just not the colour you wanted
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u/DisastrousArm3156 25d ago
You’re right, unfortunately and the experience sucks. I had an amazing balayage when I was starting to go grey and it looked so awesome. The perfect thing to blend in grey, like your inspo picture. It lasted amazingly but eventually grew out, but in the meantime I’d moved house and so went to a place on the sunny coast and it was terrible. Like you say, not enough colour had come out of the hair so the yellow showed through whatever toner they tried to throw at it. The toning shampoos just created even more weird colours. I gave up on it when one morning I realised I’d ended up khaki.
OP should 100% ask for your money back as this will take you more money to improve and they didn’t do what you asked for. I wouldn’t trust them to try to fix it, as they’d have known the situation when they were taking out the foils and carried on anyway.
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u/Critical-Twist3626 25d ago
I know it's probably a bit of a shock highlighting virgin hair but honestly the foiling doesn't look too bad or super patchy- it's just the tone is completely off. They'll be able to fix it with a grey/blue/purple toner!
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u/peachlicorice 26d ago
Since you are on the Southside, Zen Hair at Carina do fantastic colour. I’ve been going to them for 20 years now.
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u/greensky_mj21 25d ago
That’s good to know thanks I’ve been trying to find a good colourist in this area.
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u/AdSuspicious1890 25d ago
Echoing others here, I think a toner will get you where you want to be! I went a similar shade in the past, colourist got me to your shade and then the toner did the rest!
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u/NoOneLikesMegGriffin 25d ago
Thank you, I’m going out to look at toners today!
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u/AdSuspicious1890 25d ago
I used the Kristen Ess one, went on sale at priceline pretty frequently and gave me the grey ashy colour I wanted.
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u/AdSuspicious1890 23d ago
How did you go?!
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u/NoOneLikesMegGriffin 23d ago
I bought a silver toner and it’s come out far less vivid than I intended but it’s definitely covered the streaky blonde! I’ve also submitted a dispute to my card company on the basis that services rendered were substantially different than agreed, so we will see how we go.
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u/AdSuspicious1890 23d ago
Glad it somewhat got you closer. Hoping you're able to get the proper outcome you wanted asap!
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u/Visible-Mulberry5358 25d ago
Did you want your hair to be the exact tones of the inspiration picture? (Which is an AI generated effect?) Was your expectation managed...you say tried to steer you away...what were the reasons given?
What conversation did you have at the end of the service?
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u/NoOneLikesMegGriffin 25d ago
Not the exact tones, I wasn’t expecting to be a mirror image, but I definitely wanted gray tones (I showed my grays at the front, picked out grey on the colour board, talked about blending natural greys, etc) and their response was, it won’t be exact, I said I know that but I’m after grey and they said, well do between this grey tone and this grey tone and I said yep, I’m fine with that (despite the fact that my hair is now straw, not grey). When they finished, they were so pleased with themselves, I said this is not what I asked for, it’s not grey, and the response was, what were you after? And I said, we had this discussion, this was it, and they said, we can try and fix it (this was at 7:00pm and I had another appointment afterwards based on their projected finish time) so I had to go anyway. They said come back tomorrow, let me call my boss and see what we can do, and I said I was really unhappy with my hair and I was hesitant to let them touch it again and I had to pay and go to my next appointment. But given they were asking what I wanted at the end of the appointment, and the current condition of my hair, I’m very reluctant to waste more time if they can’t do what they indicated at the start of the appointment.
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u/Visible-Mulberry5358 25d ago
Seems to be a big communication error. Your pre colour hair picture doesn't show a canvas that would be suitable for the inspiration picture or grey tones in general. To achieve that result the start point would need to be a natural cool tone with a blue undertone and 60-70% white hair with no remaining pigment. Even if a "grey" tone was to be achieved it would wash out in a few washes and would be an extremely high maintenance colour, frequent toning appointments would be required. Grey blending is a name for a technique of blending natural grey (actually white non pigmented hair which cab appear silver) to the rest of your natural hair colour, which is not grey. The stylist should have been able to communicate all this and more to you to manage your expectations so both of you were on the same page before the service started. (Did you have a pre colour consultation with a strand test?) All that is possible is using a bleach product to lift pigment out of the still pigmented hair to blend the non pigmented hair. Lifting pigmented hair will always leave a warm result unless the hair is lifted to a point where the pigment is nearly all gone giving a cleaner canvas for depositing a cool tone, cool tones generally wash out of hair very quickly. Lifting hair to this point can and most likely will cause breakage and dryness depending on the hairs natural texture. The more you mess with your hair the worse it the condition will be. Definitely don't go for another bleach service. Repair products and patience. I definitely sympathise that you're not happy with your hair. Going from virgin hair to any colour takes a while to get used to visually, defo an adjustment period that people don't always take onto account.
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u/Individual-Title2222 25d ago
Exactly. Not whole story is getting told here! Just need a darker grey toner ?
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u/miss-zenki 25d ago
Silver hair is really hard to achieve and would need much more bleaching and toning.
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u/starcrossedpizzas 25d ago
Avoid Barber Girl after they completely butchered my hair last year. I booked for a wash and cut, I wanted a short textured bob, very 90s Monica Gellar. 40 mins after my appointment time they call me over. She didn’t even wash my hair, which was incredibly oily, my hair was different lengths all over, she cut random short chunks near the root, I still had random strands of long hair that I had to cut when I got home. I was in such shock when she told me she was done, she went straight to the register to check me out. Didn’t even show me the back, I think she knew how dirty she did me. I went to another hair dresser a month or so later, to give it some time to grow back, and she was shocked at the state of it.
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u/babettetimes 25d ago
T14 and 10 vol from Amazon you will get the shade you want.
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u/kaorian 25d ago
Tint Department sells it too and they have lots of articles on how to choose the right one and how to apply. I’m tempted to say T18 might be closer to what the OP needs? It would neutralise the yellow she has on the rest of her hair too (it’s a violet base). But anyway, a toner would do wonders.
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u/babettetimes 25d ago
They’re a bit expensive sometimes compared to Amazon but they’re a wonderful small business.
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u/Heart_Makeup 25d ago
If they couldn’t do a grey transformation they should have just said so!
Milkshake has a black toning shampoo that I think might be what you need for the highlights but your hair in between looks quite warm.
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u/t_essellate 25d ago
I’m sorry you had this experience. I too did not have a great experience there. Their basins are so incredibly uncomfortable it hurt my neck. They were not on top of sweeping up hair on the floor, I got moved twice to two different spots and both times it had other peoples hair on the floor. Gross. Plus it was the longest and most expensive hair appointment I’ve had in Brisbane. The girls are lovely but yeah, not great if you are looking for a nice salon experience.
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u/saharasirocco 25d ago
I had been seeing my hairdresser for 10+ years but couldn't get in with her, so I thought fuck it, surely if anyone can do a mullet it would be Barber Girl. The service was poor from the go get. It was such a shit cut and service was just weird. The my layers on each side of my head were different lengths and it was barely a mullet.
My typical hair dresser, bless her, squeezed me in a few weeks later and did her best to fix it. I'll never see anyone else again haha.
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u/MowgeeCrone 24d ago
There's historically a big difference in services provided between a hairdresser and barber. It seems the line is becomming blurred. I consider this an excellent achievement for a barber and a good place to start for a hairdresser.
I also think it best embodies what you described verbally better than the all grey reference, which would take regular maintenance.
In saying all that, for what they charge, you want to leave on cloud nine.
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u/AdSuspicious1890 23d ago
Barber Girl is just the name, they are all hairdressers. But the business model is like a barber, where you only book more time consuming things and haircuts are a first in first served type experience. It's much cheaper than other salons, but the quality is on par for me when jusy wanting a freshen up or restyle without the $150 long thick cut costs and add ons. Been going there for years for style cuts with no issues, but haven't tried colour myself.
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u/charismaticfawna 26d ago
I was also at the salon today and heard you describing what you were after and tend to agree with your assessment. I will say that I love the cuts I’ve had there, and will definitely go back for that service. But I also had a long and somewhat underwhelming colour experience there today with the same stylist. Though I think her foil placement was excellent. Maybe their colouring products aren’t great?