How do you call off a relationship with your stylist?

There's not much that can come between a woman and her hairstylist, except when she wants to see another stylist. That's when things can get pretty awkward. So, just how do you handle it?

As a paying customer you have every right to leave one stylist and slide over to another one. It's how you do it that can prevent it from becoming a hairy situation.

For many women, it starts with just a glance. The next thing you know you're cheating on your hair stylist.

"You look around and see the type of work being done around you," said Lisa Perez. "I started out seeing someone I really liked on a day she was not here. It felt like I was cheating because we had become friends."

In her 30 years in the business, international designer Traci Williams has seen hundreds of clients come through the door at 313 Salon and Spa in Marietta. She understands why many feel a sense of guilt when they go.

"We are intertwined with everything that happens to them, like having children or family events like weddings. I have been a part of everything from graduating from college to high school to kindergarten," said Williams.
    
"It does feel if you decide to do something else, oh my god,  what is she going to say, what is she going to think," said celebrity stylist and blogger Najah Aziz.

Aziz, a stylist at Like the River Salon in Atlanta, wrote an article about the right way and wrong way of salon chair hopping for Atlanta Black Star magazine.
    
She says just like with any intimate relationship, communication is the key to feeling less awkward when you're unhappy with your stylist -- or worse -- when you want to sever the relationship all together.

"The conversation is definitely necessary, whether you take her out to lunch, have it in the break room, in her office, whatever is necessary to open up the dialogue," said Aziz.

If you're a stylist, Aziz says you have to be mature and professional when the situation occurs.

Ideally, if a woman looks and feels good when she walks out the door, she and her stylist should live and style happily ever after.

Aziz says if you're not happy with your stylist, the one thing you never want to do is just disappear. Chances are your stylist cares about you as a person and leaving without saying why could potentially damage a good friendship.