Things happen and sometimes you just can’t make your appointment! We get it. We ask that you cancel your appointment at least 24 hours in advance.
When a client cancels within 24hrs of their appointment, we charge a $30 fee for appointments between $50-$100 and a $60 fee for appointments greater than $100. Our business depends on our employees’ time being planned for and compensated. This fee will automatically be added to your next appointment. Thanks for your understanding!
**In case of emergency, this fee can be waived at the teams’ discretion. Please email request for fee waive to accounting@therefinery.house**
We are very confident in the service we provide and we want you to feel confident in it too. There are all kinds of things that can impact the outcome of a service: temperature (body/hormones/weather) and communication. Hair treatments live at the intersection of science and art, and we train hard to be excellent predictors of the outcomes but there are always variables! What are we getting at? Periodically, a client finds themselves in the unfortunate position of not being totally satisfied with the outcome of a service.
It happens! We would way (way) rather hear about it than not!
Please reach back out to our admin team within the week and they will get you back in with the stylist who originally saw you for a complimentary “fix” within the next two weeks! The original stylist knows most clearly what they’ve done and how the hair responded, so are in the best position to retouch the situation. If they need support, we have plenty of very experienced stylists around to help them out. Periodically the original stylist isn’t available, at which point we’ll offer the services of an equal or higher level stylist. If a higher level stylist performs a full new service, only the difference in cost between the two providers will be charged at the point of re-do.
It’s really important to us to care for our clients — and if something has gone wrong, we’ll go out of our way to make it right.
On the rare occasion, a customer has felt uninclined to return to their original stylists (or RH generally). If, after being offered a number of ways to address dissatisfaction (we’ll go out of our way to make things right), a refund is requested – we’ll honour that! We’ll also make a note that restricts booking on this client file to only allow service with a manager, a credit card on file, and have our customer service policy sent in advance to clear up any misconceptions from the previous appointment.
The Refinery House was launched in 2016 by Heidi Epp and Aly McRae who asked the question: what happens if we invite the whole of a person into our shop(s). What happens if we acknowledge hair and skin and style as meaningful…because they belong to a person. What happens if we create a work environment that is reliable and trustworthy? What if we execute customer care because we care about our customers? What happens if we continue to invest in people first, starting with our employees and our clients? What happens if we develop operating systems to support our growth in ways that consider the people whom our policies and procedures impact? What happens when the people who come to work here every day get to influence those operations? What happens?
Turns out a whirlwind of growth plus extraordinary amounts of joy, laughter and love to fill up our growing number of shops and management teams. We discovered that what happens is: The Refinery House becomes a lovely place to work and visit. At Refinery House, we don’t touch hair and faces (and hopefully hearts) to “transform” them, but to bring out their best. It’s about connecting with our personal styles while exploring hair colours and cuts and what works best for each individual; it’s about figuring out why something is happening in our bodies or hearts; it’s recognizing that beauty is an emotional experience. At Refinery House, it’s not about becoming different, it’s about becoming a better and better version of ourselves…and that isn’t just about the way we look.
Our core value is: Getting better at being who we already are. The Refinery House is not your typical hair salon or hair studio. Yes, you can get your hair cut, styled, colored, (hair hair hair), but we care about YOU more than we care about your hair. When you’re in our hair (or aesthetics or midwife or counselling) chair, we’ll always strive to see YOU. It’s why your stylist will ask you questions about how you spend your time, what your preferences are and who you are. That chair is the start of many beautiful conversations, in fact — it’s where this whole thing started (one owner was the hair stylist of the other).
Also, we don’t know too many hair salons that have midwifes, counselling and a full range of clinical skin services. We’re happy to be a place where body, mind and heart care come together.
Mission
We exist to create a more connected and beautiful world that empowers the people to be FREE to become better at being who they already are. We persistently pursue a future where more people are free to experience JOY. We do this through enabling access to opportunities and resources for connection, which we believe is at the very heart of healing the world.
We are driven to work toward healing the world through:
· access to jobs and career training
· empowering work cultures
· inspiring hope and taking part in a larger collective purpose
· enabling connection to self and others
Vision
We aspire to be the most accessible business to access high end hair, face and tattoo treatments while enjoying a modern “home like” service and shopping experience. Every part of the Refinery House invites people further into connection with themselves, others, their homes and their environments. Despite being high end, this requires we reduce barriers of access through offering a wide range of prices, investing in the education of our employees, building a system that can exist and support multiple locations and using technology to improve the customer experience. We are committed to a high level of system development because stable operating systems set up predictability for staff and customers.
While styles keep shifting and knowledge changes industries, we believe the core of who people are and their need for connection, remains. We are committed to continuous improvement, of ourselves as individuals which has a ripple effect on the way we run our business and the services we provide. As we each get “better” at being who we already are and as we collectively focus on helping the business do so too, we have and will continue to see exponential growth.
Values
· Riding Dirty: business and life are going to get messy; when it happens, we trust each other, work on staying calm enough to listen well, gather information, and really go after problem solving in a collaborative way. We can be braver to get deeper into the market when we are swimming as a group.
· People First: when we focus on creating a healthy culture and providing great service first, profit naturally follows
· Mindset of Abundance: we proceed through life and business with hope. There is enough to supply a future for many when we nurture the plenty we have already been given.
We are a Davines concept salon, the first certified BCorp hair salon in Canada and a Green Circle Participant.
We strive to use the most carbon footprint friendly material and processes we can. Davines is a B Corp organization that fits our philosophy. We’re proud to partner with them as the exclusive supplier. Every product used on your hair, whether in color or styling, is Davines. Check out more about Davines sustainability efforts here.
Green Circle is a third party recycling organization that collects our waste and ensures it doesn’t get added to our growing landfill crisis.
It’s important that we use our hands and get ourselves out into the community. You will find our owners volunteering on numerous boards and charitable events and as a team we support Himalayan Life, Wilma’s Transition House, Mémiyelhtel, Sardis Doorway and Traverse.
At the Refinery House, we’ve made choices from the outset about what sort of business we wanted to operate. Part of that is consciously caring for our planet, our communities, and the demographics around us that are typically under represented in business and trades. We report annually on the impact and progress we’ve made in our efforts toward “being beneficial”. In 2019 we developed the goals and for the past two years, collected the data and issued public reports for 2021 and 2022.
We met our goal of donating 1% of our revenue in 2022! Click here for our sustainability report with more information on the causes we’re involved with and our goals for future impact.
We acheived BENEFIT Corporation status in 2020. What does this mean for our communities and teams? That they can rest assured the world is better for having us in it. This rigorous third party certification combs through every single aspect of our operations, from finances, waste and energy use, to all our human resource policies. We’ve committed to things like no salary inequities (no persons salary is 25% more than the next) and giving back 1% of our annual revenue to the continued education of our team, including advancement opportunities.
We’re the first salon affiliated business in CANADA to achieve this status. It’s a big deal.
Our client information is used for the purpose of booking appointments and contacting clients directly with appointment information as needed. No information gathered will ever be shared or sold to a third party. Ever. Clients have the opportunity to opt out of any marketing campaign sent via the Refinery House. Service providers do not have access to batch client information, but only to access client information details to contact for booked appointments.
All client contact information is kept in a password secure software.
Due to the nature of our products, they are all final sale.
Clothing and Colour Transfer
If you’re coming in for a colour service, please know that periodically colour does transfer. We do our best to protect your clothing, but cannot be responsible for the movement that takes place during an appointment and so can’t guarantee that your clothes will not be impacted. Please attend your appointment in garments chosen with an awareness that permanent colour may get on them.
Use of Chemical
Some of the services require the use of chemicals in the treatments. Ahead of your appointment, please make your stylist aware if you have any particular sensitivities. Alternatively, you could book a free consult before your appointment to do a patch test to rule out any skin reactions you might be concerned about.