Beauty Bar 

The second and third photos show my hair after my original highlights appointment. When I got home, I realized that it looked like I had barely had anything done. I contacted the stylist, and she asked me to return two weeks later to have the highlights corrected.

During that return appointment, everything felt rushed. I was asked to sit under the red light three times, even though I had told her that the red light damages my baby-fine hair. I had only used the red light once previously, and on that occasion she brought it into the room where I was having my hair highlighted. I have also been told by friends who regularly go to the salon that she normally brings the red light into the highlighting room. This time, however, I was repeatedly asked to get up and go to the red light.

About 17 minutes into the appointment, I was called to the red light for the third time. I stood up and began walking toward it when I tripped over the extremely long cape I was wearing. I fell hard, fracturing my kneecap, breaking my elbow, and injuring my wrist. I have now incurred more than $30,000 in medical bills as a result of this accident.

The photo of my daughter shows how long the cape was. She is three inches taller than I am, so the cape would have been even longer on me. I believe the length of the cape was a significant factor in causing me to trip and fall.

What hurt me the most emotionally was that, on the day of the accident, the stylist told me that I was like family. However, after I asked her for her insurance information, I never heard from her again. I later learned that she did not have liability insurance.

The salon is also known as Grand Salon and Suites and Crown & Combs.

I wish I had never needed to return for the correction appointment. If my original highlights had been done properly, I would not have needed to come back. And if the return appointment had not felt so rushed, I believe this accident could have been avoided. I never expected that returning to have my hair corrected would result in serious injuries, significant medical bills, and a situation where I received no support from someone who had told me I was like family.

Beauty Bar is now called Everlumé, 325 E. Venice Ave., Venice, FL. I was naive enough to pay thousands of dollars for Beauty Bar's red and blue light therapies a couple of years ago. The products did nothing to improve fine lines and wrinkles nor help with skin tone, as I was told they would. Another product called Lumnen was added to their line of offerings . I was told that it would do what I was told the original red light therapy would do. When I said I wasn't interested, the consultant kept dropping the price as I was leaving the shop, from about $18,000 to about $4000 - almost a 75% reduction in the cost. To me, that smacks of a scam.