Hairdresser slammed for ruining girl’s hair said she stopped treatment over head lice

A mother has launched a scathing attack on a hairdresser who she claims sent her 16-year-old daughter home halfway through an appointment after ‘ruining her hair’.

The New Zealand mother, who posts under Dr Steph on TikTok, compared her daughter’s wet and knotted hair with the inspiration photo she had taken to the salon – noting the teenager was thrilled to be finally allowed to have her hair dyed.

The video, which has been more than 500,000 times, quickly gathered support – prompting the hairdresser involved to defend herself in her own tearful video.

But the hairdresser says she didn’t do anything wrong – and said the teenager could come back the following day if she treated her lice

The hair stylist from Auckland’s Four One Five salon said she sent the young girl home immediately after noticing she had head lice.

‘We just had a little girl in the salon who had nits,’ she said explaining it was ‘no big deal’.

But the video, which showed the teenager struggling to breath through tears, prompted hundreds of people to contact the salon.

‘I didn’t think it was a big deal, we just wanted her to go home and get treated and said we would finish it off tomorrow, but someone started making it a big deal,’ she said.

The hairdresser said the teenager’s mum demanded she finish her daughter’s haircut there and then – but she refused because she has a small salon and didn’t want to put others at risk.

‘I still don’t think we did anything wrong,’ the stylist said, overwhelmed by the response.    

In the video, which Dr Steph captions ‘worst hairdresser ever’, she explains she told her daughter she could get her hair dyed after lockdown as a reward.

She said ‘as a doctor’ she found no evidence of head lice, or any on her other two children.

The doctor said her daughter’s hair experience was cut short when the stylist said she found lice – but the mum said she couldn’t see any 

‘Because they found the head lice they just stopped everything, they said they couldn’t even put a brush through her hair,’ she said.

‘And basically said to her “put your hair up you are leaving the salon now”.’

The doctor said she refused to pay for the work the hairdresser had done before finding the lice.

She then claims she was told she wouldn’t be allowed back in the salon if she failed to pay up. 

The TikTok video included a clip of the woman’s teary daughter asking her to fix her half-done hair. 

It appeared most people on TikTok, including other hairdressers, were supporting the teenager and her furious mother.

Some stylists even offered to have her in their salons so they could fix her hair.

‘I am a hairdresser and we were always taught if you notice lice half way through you just finish – you can’t let someone walk out like that,’ one said.

The teenager cried hysterically on the way home from the hair salon

Another woman said the hairdresser’s head lice comments were just an ‘excuse’.

‘My heart is broken for you, a salon experience is meant to be magical,’ she wrote.

But others felt sorry for the salon being ‘dragged through the mud’.

‘Why would you ruin a business like this – over hair which they offered to fix,’ one woman asked. 

‘I think the hairdresser was in their right to stop. If they had other clients in. Yes agreed it’s not ideal but not the hairdressers fault she had nits,’ another said.

Other hairdressers revealed they had also stopped appointments after finding lice halfway through an appointment.