[Threads·Newsis]
[Threads·Newsis]

Photos of a 13-year-old's jagged, uneven haircut from a well-known salon chain have sparked a heated debate online.

The images, posted recently on the social media platform Threads, showed the back and sides of the child's hair cut in a visibly uneven, lopsided manner. The poster, identified only as A, wrote that the salon had given her child a haircut that looked "like a mangled rice cake" — a Korean expression for something done sloppily.

"She's 13, at an age when kids are really sensitive about how they look," A wrote. "My child came out of the salon in tears."

A said she left a critical review using the same expression, only for the salon to push back. "I'm so furious. If that's not a mangled rice cake, what is?" she wrote.

In her review, A said she had left without asking for a correction because she feared the result would be just as bad. The stylist who handled the appointment then replied directly to the review.

The stylist said the appointment had been booked for 3 p.m. but that A arrived late, making it difficult to attend to her immediately as another customer was already being served.

The stylist also said the child's hair had a tendency to stick up, and that using clippers to clean up the back had been recommended but the customer declined. "Please come back and we will fix it," the stylist said, adding that the "mangled rice cake" language was "a bit much."

A rebuffed the explanation, saying she had been exactly six minutes late and had called the salon twice before arriving, with no one picking up. She also said she had asked for a clean scissor cut, not clippers.

Online commenters largely sided with A. "Even I could do a cleaner job, and I have no hairdressing qualifications," one user wrote. Another said A had actually been "quite polite" by using the rice cake expression.

One working hairdresser weighed in as well. "As a professional, this doesn't look like the work of a qualified stylist," the person wrote. "She should get a refund. No matter how busy you are, you don't do this. Even a five-minute cut would come out better than that."

A said her daughter has a school trip coming up and she is now looking for another salon to fix the haircut. She added that despite leaving the salon in tears, her daughter had tried to comfort her mother, saying, "I can just wear a hat."


bbo@heraldcorp.com