Woman goes to new salon in Los Angeles. She’s appalled when the hairstylist bleaches her hair—without her consent. Then the owner speaks out

When you walk into the hair salon, you are entrusting your stylist with your life. It’s a fact.

Well, maybe not. But getting a new haircut or style can be a huge risk, not to mention a deeply vulnerable process. And it’s hard to imagine a more nightmarish scenario than a stylist going off the deep end and straight-up doing something you, the client, didn’t ask for.

Enter Ayan Broomfield (@ayan.broomfield), a Canadian tennis player, who recently had to deal with just that.

‘Tears just start coming down from my eyes’

In a multi-part series first posted on Mar. 1, the first video of which has since accumulated nearly 8 million views, Broomfield describes a harrowing series of events at a new Los Angeles salon, Hair Queen L.A.

Broomfield begins her video by establishing that she’s been to Hair Queen L.A. multiple times before, “and had a fine experience.” This time, she went in for tape-ins, a kind of hair extension, but she wanted to go for a darker shade than her natural hair. So, she requested what she’d had done in the past: “a semi-permanent natural black gloss” over her hair that washes off in “eight to ten washes” and would match her new bundles.

Pretty straightforward, right? Wrong… apparently.

The whole thing was supposed to be “like a 5-minute thing.” However, the stylist allegedly put something in Broomfield’s hair and left her for about 30 minutes. Broomfield, “dissociating” in the chair, didn’t notice.

But then her scalp started to burn.

“I trust the process,” Broomfield says in her video. “She starts washing it out, it starts feeling a little bit better now. After she washed it out, there was, like, a little bit of a silence, a hesitancy. And as she was, like, touching my hair, and right away, my Spidey senses are like… hold on for a second.”

At this point, Broomfield says the stylist attempts to apply another layer of dye, but Broomfield isn’t having it—because why on earth would she be dying it again? The stylist says she just needs to “touch it up a little bit,” as “some parts need a little bit extra darkness,” but this makes no sense. Darkening already-dark hair should take almost no effort at all.

“Mind you, there’s no mirror in front of where this wash station is, so I don’t know what’s going on,” Broomfield says. “… And I’m like, hey, sorry … Is there something going on? Because my scalp is burning. This lady tries to gaslight me.”

The stylist tries to tell Broomfield that her “scalp is weak” and “sensitive”—but Broomfield has “never really had this issue before,” and is still experiencing a burning pain. Finally, the stylist washes everything out and the pain subsides.

And then, Broomfield sees the damage.

Her hair was “orange, brown, black” all over the place, like “brittle” patchwork. Though the stylist denied it, claiming her “roots lifted more than [her] ends,” she says it was clearly bleached. Broomfield says she sees the box, and it said “Blonde. Permanent.”

Even though all Broomfield had asked for was to go darker.

Things escalated from there. The stylist “immediately realized that she had messed up” and grabbed her manager, who also allegedly “gaslit” Broomfield. An even higher-ranking manager also apparently failed to help properly. So, Broomfield took to TikTok—and then the CEO of the salon responded.

@ayan.broomfield part 1 #hairgonewrong #hairdye #hairstylistproblems ♬ original sound – ayan.broomfield

Salon CEO responds to botched bleach job

Moyo Baldini, CEO of Hair Queen L.A., took to TikTok in two separate videos to address the bleach fiasco. In them, Baldini offered his sincere apologies and acknowledged Broomfield experienced “a nightmare” that he “wouldn’t wish … on anybody.”

Baldini says he has made sure Broomfield has received a total refund and has openly asked if there is anything else he can do to make amends. He identifies her as “a customer that [he] truly [values],”
because she’s “been coming to [his] company for over four years now.” But he also expresses real fear at the virality of Broomfield’s videos.

“I’m just in panic because obviously we are in an age where social media is very powerful,” Baldini says. “The videos that you’ve made have got over five million views across the platforms … Not minimizing what have happened to you. Hundred percent a disgrace, and I’m open to doing whatever it takes to be able to fix the situation.”

Baldini says he suspended the stylist responsible for wrecking Broomfield’s hair, who was apparently hired only a week prior, and is investigating his management. He also says he’s messaged Broomfield privately multiple times and is awaiting her response. In both his videos, he takes accountability for the mistake and pleads for Broomfield to come to the table with him.

“Hair Queen LA is a company that have given me everything that I have,” Baldini says. “I came in this country fourteen years ago with… I couldn’t even speak English, and I didn’t have any money. I started a company with five hundred dollars selling hair out of my apartment. Then I started doing deliveries, and five years later I was able to open the first shop.”

The Mary Sue has reached out to Broomfield and Hair Queen LA via email.

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