You sell craftsmanship, not an outcome
A client comes back with a colour that is not what she had in mind, and as the hairdresser the first question you ask yourself is whether you owe her a refund. The answer starts with a sentence that sits literally in the sector terms and that almost no owner knows.
The Algemene Voorwaarden Uiterlijke Verzorgingsbranche require in article 4(1) that your work matches the agreement and is carried out with good and careful craftsmanship using sound materials and products. Article 7(2) sets the other side next to it: the entrepreneur is not liable if the desired result turns out not to be achievable. You are bound to the way you work, not to the photo your client showed you on her phone. Source: the terms as published by the SER, the 2018 version with the January 2025 amendments to articles 1, 2, 8.1 and 10.2, checked September 2026.
On that same side of the table sits a duty many salons skip. Article 4(2) requires you to inform the client beforehand about the nature and scope of the treatment, the results that can reasonably be expected and the possible risks, and to ask her for the information you need to do the work properly. That two-minute conversation before the treatment is exactly the document that decides things later.
These terms apply to your business if you are registered with the Stichting Geschillencommissie Consumentenzaken, are a member of ANBOS, ANKO or ProVoet, and have declared them applicable to your agreements. If you have not, you fall back on ordinary Dutch consumer law, which is stricter for you on most points and carries no compliance guarantee.
If your business sits in a different niche than hairdressing, do not assume the same route applies. The Geschillencommissie Uiterlijke Verzorging, per its own description on degeschillencommissie.nl, handles complaints against a hairdresser, beauty specialist or pedicurist, tied to members of ANKO, ANBOS and ProVoet. A nail studio or massage practice is not named separately. Whether such a business falls under this committee, under the general Geschillencommissie voor Consumentenzaken, or under no disputes committee at all depends on which branch organisation it is affiliated with. Check that per business on degeschillencommissie.nl before pointing to 'the disputes committee' in your own terms, because pointing to a committee you are not affiliated with does not help a client.
What the sector terms oblige you to do
Three duties, and they are more concrete than you would expect.
A complaints procedure you have made known. Article 8(2): you have a sufficiently publicised arrangement for receiving and handling complaints, and you actually handle complaints in line with it. A page on your site and a line in your confirmation email are enough, provided they say where someone can go, how quickly you respond and what the next step is.
Repair within a reasonable period. Same article: you repair shortcomings where possible within a reasonable period. That is not goodwill, it is the main rule. ACM ConsuWijzer describes the same order for the consumer: report in writing what is wrong, give a reasonable deadline to fix it, and only then dissolve the contract or ask for money back, checked September 2026.
The client has to complain in time. Article 8(1) was tightened in January 2025: the consumer must submit shortcomings immediately after discovering them, or being able to discover them, in writing or electronically. Someone returning three months after a colour service is in a weak evidentiary position, and you are allowed to say so.
One duty has actually gone. You no longer have to refer to the European ODR platform: it shut down for good on 20 July 2025 under Regulation (EU) 2024/3228. If that link is still in your terms or in your website footer, remove it.
When you are liable and when you are not
Article 7(1) draws the line broadly: you are liable towards the consumer for damage resulting from a shortcoming attributable to you, to a person in your employment or to a trainee. The apprentice who leaves bleach on too long is your problem, not the client's and not the apprentice's.
Article 7(2) limits it on two sides. You are not liable for damage of any kind arising because the consumer supplied incorrect or incomplete information. And you are not liable if the desired result turns out not to be achievable. The client who hides that she has been using henna at home shifts the risk onto herself, provided you asked and can show that you asked.
If you hold business liability insurance, article 7(4) limits your liability to the amount that policy pays out in that case. That makes the question of what your cover actually is sharper than it looks, and it is worked out separately in the article on insurance for a new salon.
What the disputes committee actually decides
If the complaints procedure does not resolve things, the consumer can bring the dispute before the Geschillencommissie Uiterlijke Verzorging. That is possible up to twelve months after the date of the complaint made to you, under article 9(3). You may start a case too, but then you have to ask the consumer to state within five weeks whether he agrees, under article 9(4).
The complaint fee at this committee is 52.50 EUR, refunded to the consumer if he is proved right, per degeschillencommissie.nl, checked September 2026. If you are a member, ANBOS, ANKO and ProVoet guarantee compliance with the binding advice up to a maximum of 7,500 EUR per advice, unless you submit that advice to a court for review within two months, under article 10(1) and 10(2). Mind the wording of article 10(3): the guarantee does not lapse, it is simply never given in those cases. ANBOS, ANKO or ProVoet provide no compliance guarantee where, before the consumer has met the formal intake requirements, suspension of payment has been granted, bankruptcy declared or business activities actually ceased. For cessation, the entry in the Trade Register is decisive, or an earlier date that can plausibly be shown.
More concrete than the rules are the rulings themselves. Four cases from the public register, all four from the Uiterlijke Verzorging committee:
| Case | What happened | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| 27078/34133, 21 August 2020 | Balayage bleaching across two sessions for 842 EUR, followed by breakage and partial hair loss. The client took up the free corrective treatment, but did not keep the follow-up appointments from the treatment plan drawn up afterwards | Contract dissolved in full: 842 EUR refunded, plus 52.50 EUR in complaint fees and a contribution to the committee's handling costs |
| 10791/21078, 21 August 2020 | Failed colour service, and the free corrective attempt left the hair worse. Claimed: 180 EUR refund, 300 EUR of hair products and 1,500 EUR of emotional damage | Largely upheld: 180 EUR refunded plus 52.50 EUR in complaint fees. The 300 EUR and the 1,500 EUR rejected as insufficiently substantiated |
| 10308/19917, 18 November 2020 | Allergic reaction after colouring dreadlocks. The client had asked for a test beforehand, the salon said it was not needed | Rejected: her own statement and photos do not prove that this particular dye caused the reaction |
| 60880, 11 January 2012 | Colour removal treatments carried out with the wrong method, after which the hair had to be cut off | 350 EUR in damages, 50 EUR in complaint fees and a 100 EUR contribution to the committee's handling costs |
Source: the rulings register on degeschillencommissie.nl, checked September 2026. Two things stand out.
The committee rarely awards more than the treatment fee, because consequential and emotional damage have to be substantiated and almost never are.
And repairing on its own does not save you. In the balayage case the salon did carry out the corrective treatment free of charge and a treatment plan was drawn up afterwards, but the client did not keep the follow-up appointments. The committee did not hold that against her: given the hair loss that had already set in during the second treatment, it found it not unreasonable that she had lost confidence in a good end result. What decided it was that the agreed result had not been achieved and that the hair was damaged. On top of that, the salon had accepted the job without declining it over the risks involved, and had thereby, in the committee's words, undertaken to reach an adequate result without disproportionate damage to the hair. The lesson is not that you should keep repairing, but that you decline a risky bleaching job when you cannot carry the result.
The ladder: repair, price reduction, refund
Almost every complaint that ends well follows the same order. Skip a step and you arrive at the committee weaker than you needed to be.
| Step | What you do | When |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Look again | Client back in the chair, look yourself, and record what you see | Same day or within 2 working days |
| 2. Repair | Offer a free corrective treatment, even if you believe your work was sound | Within a reasonable period, article 8(2) |
| 3. Adjust the price | Drop part of the bill if the repair does not fully succeed | After the corrective attempt |
| 4. Refund | The treatment fee back where the shortcoming is attributable to you | If repair is impossible, fails or is refused |
| 5. Refer on | Point to the Geschillencommissie Uiterlijke Verzorging yourself | Up to 12 months after the complaint, article 9(3) |
Step 5 feels counterintuitive and is still the smart move. A client who feels taken seriously and is shown the route herself escalates online far less often. And the committee sees that you followed the procedure.
Do not buy off a complaint with credit and no acknowledgement, and do not hold the conversation with a full salon around you. Put a slot in the diary outside peak hours, and it becomes an actual conversation.
What belongs in the file
Every ruling above turns on evidence. Four things cost you two minutes per client in total and decide the case later.
What you record differs by treatment. A failed colour service calls for a different file than an allergic reaction after an eyelash treatment or a damaged cuticle after a gel manicure: the colour case turns on product choice and processing time, the lash case on a prior patch test and the glue used, the cuticle case on how the nail was worked and whether it was cut into. Do not ask the same checklist everywhere, ask the one that fits the treatment.
What you asked. A short intake for colour and chemical services: colouring at home, earlier reactions, medication, pregnancy. Write down the answer, not just the question.
What you advised. If you advise against something and the client wants it anyway, note that. Article 4(2) obliges you to inform her about the results that can reasonably be expected, and that is exactly where things go wrong with a client holding a screenshot.
What you did. Product, developer strength, processing time, and who carried out the treatment. With a team that last one is not a detail.
What you offered. Date, content and the client's response, by email or message, so there is a timeline. A corrective treatment offered but recorded nowhere does not exist.
Keep this with the client, not in your head and not in a group chat. If you later sell or close, that file feeds into the choices set out in the article on selling or closing a salon, because client records do not simply travel with the business.
What to sort out this week
Day 1: write your complaints procedure. Half a page: where a complaint goes, that you respond within two working days, that you offer repair first, and that the Geschillencommissie Uiterlijke Verzorging is open for up to twelve months after the report.
Day 2: publish it. On your booking page, in your confirmation email and on paper in the salon. Article 8(2) asks for sufficiently publicised, not for merely existing.
Day 3: fix your intake questions for colour and chemical services and agree with your team who asks them and where the answer is recorded.
Day 4: write two standard replies. One for a justified complaint, and one where you offer repair without accepting liability. People writing under pressure write worse.
When a complaint lands, reconstructing what happened usually takes longer than the complaint itself. In CelerBook that reconstruction is already there: every appointment carries the name of the staff member who carried it out, the client page shows visit history with treatment and date, and your cancellation terms and no-show policy sit visibly on your own booking page before anyone books. So you can see per client what was done, when and by whom, without opening a folder. The pricing stays small while your business is small: the first 5 appointments each month are free, then 0.25 EUR excluding VAT per completed appointment, capped at 30 EUR a month for a solo operator plus 5 EUR per additional active staff member. No contract, and no usage means no cost. Try CelerBook for free.