Shasta School Of Cosmetology

I know you can be disappointed at a cosmetology school, they are students after all, but seriously, I’ve been like five times and I haven’t been disappointed yet. In fact this last time I went to Nicole, who it turns out is a perfectionest who will be there at least six more months. I have a short buzzcut and had her bleach it platinum then put in hot pink, hot purple and hot peacock blue angled blocks of color about an inch wide just above my part… looks like a perfect, beautiful feather… I get compliments on it every where I go. But it’s more than just Nicole… they run a tight ship, they’ve got excellent and dedicated teachers. So for color, for the next 6 months, you need Nicole and any time with any of them for anything else.
After reading in one of the other reviews about what a bad part of town that it’s in… please… it’s across the street from a Dutch Bros, one block from the McConnell Arboretum, which is next to a very nice grade school… the PBS tv station is across the street. There are two pizza places, a Chinese food restaurant, just down the street… there are no empty business buildings and no graffiti… It’s not downtown Santa Barbara… but come on.
Update: 1÷30÷16… they still haven’t disappointed me. I still get compliments every time I get my hair done there. Be sure to tip the kids, hell we’re practically stealing to get this great work done at such low prices. :)&-=

I booked an appointment to have my hair styled here for a wedding I was a bridesmaid in. it was overall a pretty good experience. Everyone was quite nice. It is a bustling, busy place, though not negatively so. I brought several pictures of how my hair was supposed to be done (bridesmaids hair had to be similar to eachothers) The girl who did my hair seemed a little un-​confident. I gave her some pointers on how to achieve the hair style. I think she had a bit of a hard time translating the style in the photos to my hair. Though to be fair I do have pretty long, thick & curly hair, so it can be overwhelming to style. I did end up pretty happy with how my hair looked, in the end. Overall, I would definitely go back again. These are STUDENTS. You can’t expect perfection from someone who’s learning. If you’re going to pick it apart or complain, go to an experienced person in a salon & pay a bit more.

I love Shasta, I’d choose it over Marinello any day. Staff are friendly, the students are amazing and aim to please! I’ve never had a bad experience.

I can’t review the school itself; rather, I’m relating my experience with the cosmetology services provided by students. We’re visiting family in Redding, and I was due for a mani/​pedi. I’m used to Southern California prices (about $ 22 for a basic mani/​pedi combo), and found that salons in Redding are at least double that. I saw an ad for SSC in the Yellow Pages and thought, hey, why not? It was $ 5 for a basic water mani and $ 12 for the basic pedi. I made an early afternoon appointment and headed over.
First, the school is not in a nice part of town. I was a little nervous. But I found it without problems and went in. I was surprised by the group waiting in the lobby and the vast number of styling stations in the main area; probably at least 50 chairs, many of which were in use. I paid up front for the services I’d reserved and waited a few minutes until a nice little girl, maybe 17 years old?, came out to greet me. We walked to a back room and she set up a station. From what I overheard in a neighboring conversation, they usually do nails in a different room, but the estheticians were testing facials in there, making it unavailable. I was surrounded by mannequin heads with their sparse hair in rollers, and in the next room, more girls worked on foiling and coiffing more mannequin heads. A bustling operation.
I sat in the chair momentarily, when «my girl» had me get back up, go to a sink and scrub my nails with a brush. Certainly not the luxury I’m used to in real salons! (I think I’ll name «my girl» Julie, as I can’t remember her name and probably wouldn’t give it anyway.) After we got back to the chair, Julie asked if I wanted my nails clipped. OK, granted they weren’t long, but YES, of course I want them cut; that’s why I’m here! So, with nerve-​wracking trepidation (mine), she began clipping with so little confidence that it was all I could do not to grab the clippers from her shaking hands and do it myself.
A soak, too-​timid cuticle push, and nice but too-​gentle hand/​arm massage later, she asked if I wanted polish. I didn’t (an active lifestyle makes fingernail polish impractical for me), and she pronounced the mani complete. However, she hadn’t yet filed the jagged edges left by the clippers. I pointed out the obvious, so she excused herself to find a file (isn’t that a basic tool?), and returned shortly with a paper emery board (really?!). She drug the coarse sandpaper in three short bursts across each nail, which did nothing to smooth the jagged edges. As Julie left the chair to fill a dish pan of water for my feet, I used the emery board to finish the job as best a person can with such a crude tool.
The pedi began more timidly; I prefer my toenails short and rounded, and asked her to clip them accordingly. She declined, saying she didn’t want to hurt me. What? I suggested she just let me do it, because having her polish uncut toes would be pointless, as I’d just have to strip and redo them at home an hour later. She reluctantly agreed to clip them, and I used the cuticle clippers to round the corners. She didn’t file. She did the soak, massage, etc., followed by my chosen paint color. (I had to ask for a clear base coat.) She did a pretty good job of painting, but when she used the polish-​remover soaked cotton to clean up the edges, she took the polish off the end of my big toes. By this time, we were pushing close to 2 hours, and I needed to get going, so I didn’t bother with any further corrections.
Overall, the experience wasn’t unpleasant, but the quality of the work was definitely in the «you get what you pay for» range. The phone book ad said that the students were «supervised,» but that was far from the truth. A couple of profs came into the room a few times, but they never got within five feet of my nails. I heard one say that he had evaluated her station set-​up, but in my opinion, how the station is set up is WAY down the list of important elements of a quality nail service. At no time did anyone evaluate her actual work on my nails, ask me how things were going, etc.
On the plus side, it was cheap and «Julie» was a nice girl who made good conversation and didn’t get involved in the personal chatter the «other people’s girls» were making (including talking loudly about an old lady’s gross thick nails, another client’s nail fungus, burning a client’s head during a perm, etc.) One thing I found utterly shocking and unacceptable — Julie had not EVER been to a real salon for a mani/​pedi, and hadn’t even had her own hair cut in several years.
Would I go back for another mani/​pedi? Absolutely not. Would I trust any of them to cut my hair? Uh… HECK NO. But maybe a facial would be safe? Nah, I’m out.