Portland Beauty School, Portland | Fees, Rankings, Address, Admission, Vacancies, Reviews & More

I went to this school for the esthetics program because it was one of the few schools that is flexible with schedules. That being said I don’t recommend the 2 month Esthetician course. It is so rapid you don’t have hardly any time to go over anything more than once. We had chapters we didn’t even get to go over, just told to read because the schedule is so tight. I would recommend a longer scheduled course to really get the most out of your education. I loved my instructor Jenny & Marquita was so sweet! (I am not sure how to spell her name.) However I am sad at how unconfident I felt after finishing school. I did not feel comfortable even calling myself an esthetician. Fortunately after almost a year I am finally feeling confident in my position.

As far as our kits we didn’t receive a few items in our kits and we were not reimbursed or compensated for not receiving those products. Also $400 in books was listed on the Tuition fees but we didn’t receive a book. We received a binder with the bullet points from the book that included a lot of typos, was such thin paper you couldn’t even highlight pages without it almost ripping, and overall was difficult to use. If we have to pay $400 then we need to receive the ACTUAL esthetics book. I had to buy it after school just so I could pass my boards because an overview of the book isn’t sufficient.
We weren’t allowed to be open to the public so we had to take only friends and family members. We were crammed into a small room with dividers and it was an extremely unprofessional setting and I felt so bad for my clients.

I have been receiving emails to write a review so I wanted to be 100% honest and help those who are planning to attend this school. I will say again I LOVED my instructor Jenny, I just wish other aspects of the school were better and that I wouldn’t have chosen such a rapid course, I do not think they should even offer it.

UPDATE: Sherry, the director, spoke with me to make this right. She assigned me to a specific student, talked through the process with the student, and checked in multiple times. Additionally, that service and a future service will be comped as a way to make amends. I am satisfied with the hair color now. I will give PBS one more try since my second visit was much better and go from there.

I had an unsatisfactory experience at Portland Beauty Academy. I understand that it is a school therefore students will make mistakes. That’s how students learn. No big deal. However, I’m unsure why I wasn’t directly told the truth when the student incorrectly highlighted my hair. I repeatedly said I’ve never dyed my hair before and was nervous. I listened carefully to the instructor’s explicit directions that she gave at least twice, yet she left after the first foil went on, not the third. I tried to ask the stylist in training why all of my hair was in foil when I asked for highlights. I asked the stylist in training next to us if my person was doing it correctly. They both didn’t tell me the truth. The instructor didn’t say anything to me upon seeing what had happened. A random person came by and made a comment about how cool the single color on top looked. No one still said anything!!! It wasn’t until I asked the instructor at checkout if it’s suppose to look like this that there wasn’t a direct response. The response I got was if I didn’t like it within the week, come back and we’ll put lowlights in. I would have absolutely understood if it wasn’t done correctly and it corrected. It’s a school. Mistakes happened and you fix it. That wasn’t the case at all and I’m completely disappointed. I will not be coming back after it gets fixed.