Sunesy Hair Design - San Mateo (CA)

5 /5 Jennifer Teu: JC gave my 17-year-old a truly perfect cut. His hair can be tricky because it’s slightly wavy and has unexpected body. But the results were amazing. The salon is modern and clean, and the owner’s advice on stylists was spot on. Scheduling via Yelp was super easy. Men’s cuts are $45 cash, $47 credit. There’s a cute cafe next door if you arrive early.

1 /5 Tati Martinez: Do not go here. I went in with somewhat faded/grown out red hair to get chunky caramel highlights and a layered cut, with a reference picture. None of the employees spoke very fluent English, so it took a little back and forth to figure out what the plan was to get my hair similar to the picture- even so, they said “we can only try our best- it won’t be 100% [like the picture].” That should have been my red flag to get up and leave. The hairdresser took 3 hours bleaching portions of my hair for the highlights part. Then, after already shampooing my hair after toner, they decided to dump black hair dye on top of the highlights they just did. The dye was left on for about 3 minutes before washing out, but left my entire head jet black- no sign of any highlights that he spent 3 hours on. When cutting my hair, I asked for bangs and he straight up said “No”. As he was blow drying/straightening my hair to finish up, he and the salon owner kept trying to show me the “highlights” in the mirror (again, my hair is jet black.), assuring me that after 2-3 washes and “in the sunlight” the color would lighten. I’ve gotten my hair done enough to know black hair dye does not do that. I left and received a text an hour later that if I was still unhappy with the color after 2-3 washes, I could come back and they would fix it for free. After initially taking up this offer, I followed up with questions to see if I could get a refund if I still was not satisfied with my color after returning; the owner kept saying they did not offer refunds, and she would “not have reached out if they knew they couldn’t fix it”. We went back and forth for a while before I obliged and agreed to come back for a second appointment to get it fixed. 2 hours later they refunded me and cancelled said appointment. Huge waste of my time and their time. 1.5 stars is being generous. The .5 for refunding me and not making it worse.

1 /5 Leslie Cook: I recently visited Sunesy Hair Design for a color service and unfortunately, I left extremely disappointed. My goal was to get a handful of babylights around my crown in two tones (blonde and caramel) and blonde money pieces to frame my face, similar to a "salted caramel" look I had in mind. I showed the stylist, Manny, a photo (attached below) for reference. As background, Ive had a balayage done before two years ago at a mid-tier salon in Virginia. Since then, Ive had focused babylights done at a more convenient local salon in Virginia, where Ive never had any issues with this approach to updating my balayage. Ive also been to Sunesy Hair Design before and they did great job with my haircuts in the past. Despite showing a reference photo, Manny ended up doing babylights all over my head in a mix of blonde and caramel--far from the subtle, focused babylights and face-framing money pieces I requested. About 30 minutes into the service, I had a feeling that something was off, but I didnt speak up. Unfortunately, the end result was so far from what I had envisioned that I wore a baseball cap for the rest of the day. I had to visit another salon the next day for a color correction, and while they fixed a lot of the mistakes, Ill likely need another color service in 8-12 weeks to fully address the excess blonde babylights. While the babylight technique at Sunesy was fine, I cannot recommend this salon for balayage or highlight services. It seemed like there was a fundamental misunderstanding--whether due to a language barrier or something else--and even with a reference photo, they did not deliver the look I wanted. I would have preferred they honestly let me know if they couldnt achieve the result I was after, rather than proceeding with a $360 service that left me so dissatisfied.

5 /5 Lily Xiao: Ive been going to this place for my haircut routine since this year. Manny is amazing! He does his job so well and surprises me each time with my new hairstyle. And he is really skilled, he can get your haircut done with high quality but almost only consumes half of the time compared to other places that I went before. They offer scalp, neck and shoulder massages and hot towels to help you relax when they wash your hair. They recently renovated their space and its bright and cozy. I enjoy going there each time.

5 /5 Kevin Nguyen: I had a perm done elsewhere about six weeks ago that turned out curlier than I wanted, so I booked a first-time haircut with Aaron here, and I’m so glad I did! He completely fixed my haircut, and now it looks so much better. I’m much happier with it! Aaron was also incredibly thorough in explaining how to maintain and take care of my hair, which I really appreciated. It’s clear that he’s knowledgable and takes the time to ensure his clients leave feeling their best. I’ll definitely be coming back for future appointments, highly recommend!