'[My] friend wraps what’s left of Karen’s hair in a towel': Customer insists hairdresser style her hair, is infuriated when her hairdressers' warnings come true

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Aug 13, 2023 3:00 PM EDT

Hair stylists do an amazing job at making you look your best, but they aren't miracle workers. Not every hairstyle can be accomplished in one day, as this customer found out. 

Apparently, one recent hair trend has been women who want to have Kim Kardashian's long silvery-gray hair. What they don't know is that it's most likely a wig…and their own hair will take a lot of processing to achieve the same color as Kim. 

At least these women know what style they want for their hair! It's always good to show up with a few photos of hairdos. That way, you and your stylist can be on the same page about how to get that new 'do. 

Hair stylists can perform wonders — the right haircut really is transformative. But even with their best efforts, they can't make jet black hair become bottle blond in a single day, nor would most recommend doing that transition at all. Even if you really want blond hair, is it worth it to sacrifice the health of your hair? You can have that blond look, but if your hair looks and feels like dry straw, you might not get all those compliments you were hoping for. 

Up next, this person planned way ahead for a double birthday set at a restaurant — but the place still didn't have a reservation for them when their party of ten arrived to celebrate. 

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  • 01
    Human - AVEDA 'Karen starts crying because the cut makes her look 40. She... wants to speak to the manager.'
    via Adam Winger on Unsplash
  • 02
    Font - Don't be Karen if you don't want to look like Karen LOC So I remembered a story of malicious compliance, as recounted to me by a good friend of mine. My friend is a hairdresser by trade, and works at a very upscale salon. I go to her myself and can attest to her being amazing. Anyway, this salon had one customer who had been passed around from hairdresser to hairdresser bullying every single one she saw. This woman was an absolute holy terror, she made 3, count em' THREE separate hairdres
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 03
    Font - She was a relatively young gal, maybe in her mid twenties. With very long bottle blond hair (past her waist) that she insisted to everyone who wasn't her hairdresser was her natural color (it was very much not). She went to the salon religiously so no one would ever find out her secret shame. She blamed her hairdresser for all her hair problems (many of which were the results of heavy bleaching and how much heat she used on her hair and her refusal to follow care instructions) and was nev
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 04
    Font - So everything shuts down in our state and she screams at my friend to come do her hair for her because she can't have her boyfriend finding out she's not a natural blonde.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 05
    Font - Anyway, my friend refuses and despite Karen's threats, she knows that the salon owner knows she's too d hed good at her job and has too loyal a customer base to fire her so she thinks no more of it until a few months later when the salon reopens, and lo and behold, who should appear in the appointment book but Karen! So the day arrives and Karen shows up with her hair dyed JET BLACK (and not very well dyed either). My friend is shocked because Karen's always made such a big deal about bei
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 06
    Font - My friend asks Karen what they were doing that day and Karen demands to be made blonde again. My friend is like "uhhh, okay that's going to be a process..." because this b has used black box dye (which is really hard to get out). For those of you who don't know, getting dyed dark hair to blonde is usually something done in stages, so the hair has a chance to recover a bit between bleaching sessions to avoid breakage.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 07
    Font - Karen is like "No! I am going to be blonde when I leave here today or I am telling your boss that you see clients at home sometimes and getting you fired!" (my friend sometimes does friend's hair at home for a lower price because she's a sweetheart, which her boss is fine with) and "It's your fault I had to dye my own hair this color because my boyfriend would have SEEN MY ROOTS if I hadn't done something!". My friend is tired of Karen's BS at this point but it's a slow day, and she has t
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 08
    Font - explains to Karen that if she takes her blond all in one go her hair will be fried, and she'll likely end up having to lose a lot of length. Karen scoffs and rolls her eyes and is like "that's never happened before, and my hair's so healthy, I'm sure it will be fine if you don't screw it up." Friend recommends at least using olaplaex (a product that helps prevent damage), Karen says she thinks it's a scam to overcharge customers and won't pay for it. Cue malicious compliance.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 09
    Font - Friend is like "okay" but makes several coworkers be witnesses that this is what Karen is asking for after Friend explained the risks. Friend meanwhile has formulated a fiendish scheme.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 10
    Font - After that friend goes through the whole process of bleaching Karen's hair. She has to do it like four times or something, and she checks with Karen after each one that she's absolutely sure she has to be all the way back to champagne blonde by the end of the day and recommends stopping at some of the nice auburn or strawberry blonde shades in between for now, but Karen insists, her boyfriend hates her hair anything but her "natural" blonde. My friend knows she will refuse because when ha
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 11
    Font - With each bleaching there's more breakage and Karen's hair feels worse.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 12
    Font - My friend knows Karen's hair won't survive this, but Karen absolutely refuses to let her stop. Eventually at long last my friend manages to get Karen's hair to the required level and so she starts to rinse Karen's hair. It... starts breaking off in her hand, the length of her hair is melted, fried, destroyed. My friend gets the bleach out and immediately conditions the ever loving f out of it while explaining to Karen that exactly what my friend said would happen has happened. Karen says
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 13
    Font - must be exaggerating and insists it's fine. Friend wraps what's left of Karen's hair in a towel and takes her back over to her station where she shows Karen the problem, everything past a little beyond chin length is pretty much gone. Karen shrieks and accuses my friend of everything under the sun, incompetence, operating without a license (she most definitely has her license), a personal vendetta, etc etc. My friend eventually calms her down and tells her she'll do her best to cut it so
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 14
    Font - My friend gives Karen the sharpest, most beautifully cut angled bob you've ever seen (I've seen it thanks to my friend showing me Karen's insta) that despite the incredible precision and skill showcased, is unequivocally and perfectly the Karen.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 15
    Font - Blown out and styled to "Can I speak to the manager?” perfection, Karen starts crying because the cut makes her look 40. She... wants to speak to the manager. My friend gets the manager and Karen throws a fit, threatening to sue, and how dare they, and how his employee did this to mock her and so on and so forth while my friend stands there looking completely innocent.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 16
    Font - The boss then asks friend her side of the story and the other hairdressers back her up and that the cut is just her trying to make the best of what's left of her hair. Even the boss by now is sick of Karen's B.S. and Karen is forced to pay the huge sum of money owed for how much time was spent bleaching her hair (much of which is now gone) and leaves swearing never to come back.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 17
    Font - Her boyfriend (a cop) calls up later and threatens to assault my friend for doing that to Karen's hair "against his wishes" and my friend tells him if he tries anything she's going to tell his superiors and every news agency in the city. Nothing further happens but he eventually dumps Karen because he "doesn't like girls with short hair"
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 18
    Font - Edit: Holy heck, thank you for the awards! This really blew up! Edit 2: Unfortunately Karen's Karenness cannot be attributed to her boyfriend's influence, she was like that long before they got together. She had been going to that salon since she was a teenager (the older stylists who'd been there awhile told my friend stories of her antics) and had always been a terror. I think this is more a case of birds of a feather than of a girl scared into acting unreasonable.
    via u/Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78
  • 19
    Font - KamehameHanSolo. She... wants to speak to the manager. I absolutely lost it at this point. This is one of the best MC stories I've seen on here.
    via u/KamehameHanSolo
  • 20
    Font - ArchdevilTeemo Nice work! However your friend should have reported the cop. 2.4k Reply Share Puzzleheaded-Dirt-78 OP Yeah, she probably should have, but I think she didn't want to risk the drama in a relatively small town
    via u/ArchdevilTeemo
  • 21
    Gesture - geon Ironically, the Karen was better off losing that POS boyfriend.
    via u/geon
  • 22
    Font - I love that giving someone a specific haircut can serve as such an eloquent insult now. Truly a testament to the magical power of cultural signifiers
    via r/MaliciousCompliance
  • 23
    Font - DennesTorres Aren't there parents to teach these people not be so empty and a relationship based on hair color or length is just silly and exposing the emptiness of the person?
    via u/DennesTorres
  • 24
    Font - [deleted] That was a satisfying tale of revenge. Smart of your buddy to get multiple witnesses and get Karen's okay at each stage.
    via u/deleted

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hair karens boss manager salon malicious compliance hair style karen-customer haircut malicious-compliance-reddit wild-karen karen-customers speak to the manager style karens in the wild hairdresser karen
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