Yes, I think you should refund in full.
I also think it's likely that you would lose the case if she took you to the small claims court.
The fact is your consultation was poor. You did not ask about medication or advise about how medication might affect the extensions. This is an essential component of all consultations about fitting hair extensions. You also re-fitted them after she advised you about the medication.
A competent professional would have asked the question and advised the client accordingly. They also would not have re-fitted the ones that had come out due to obvious hair loss.
If the client then either deliberately mislead you about the medication or said they were happy to take the risk, then you have some degree of leeway. However, you still went ahead and re-fitted after the initial loss when a more experienced professional extensionist probably wouldn't have done.
YOU are the professional and as such the client is paying for your expertise, skill and knowledge. You cannot mitigate your loss by saying that you are inexperienced.
Hi AcidPerm, long time no see, I fully agree with you on this one,
OP it is a shame but I also think that you would have a tough time proving yourself if taken to court. Sorry to be a scaremonger but we live in a compensation driven society and if she kicks her heels in it could look bad for you.
You did not do a proper in depth consultation and then replaced extensions after you became aware that her medication might be to blame. You will need to get the rest of those removed before the added weight starts pulling the rest of her hair out.
Unfortunately a lot of ready made consultation cards do not cover all aspects of a chosen treatment, mainly because they are quite generic. For instance at Sally's you can buy consultation cards and they look OK but you have to alter them so much to cover all questions you need to ask it is actually better to make one up on your PC or get them from the company you trained with. Another thing to do is to ask other girls and guys for samples of theirs and take as much from them to make your own up. Ideally you should cover health and medical questions when they make the initial enquiry either over the phone or when they pay the deposit. This way you can Google side effects of medications and will know if they are Ok to do extensions on.
I understand that it will be difficult to find the funds to refund but I think you will have to make a plan here, if you don't and she takes you to court you will be liable for a lot more, court costs, loss of earnings while at court, extra compensatin if her hair is now balding because the Professional did not ask the right questions at consultation.
I feel so bad for you, all I can suggest to give you a little peace of mind is if you are a member of the Guild you can call the Legal Helpline, it is free and they helped me greatly about a year ago.
If I were in your position I would get to see her ASAP, remove the hair. If she insists on a refund there and then you will have to bite the bullet and tell her that you will or wont. That is totally your own decision.
Do you offer any other treatments? Maybe offer her some cash and gift vouchers to make up the balance? I would not be happy with this but she might. If you don't have the money you will have to be prepared to make some sort of arrangement with her.
Remember when you do a great job your clients will tell a few close friends and family how great you are, when you do a "bad " job ( I don't mean that you did a bad job but the girl is losing hair and wants her money back, so in her eyes it was a bad job) the client will tell absolutely everyone that is willing to listen how awful you are. Bad rep spreads much quicker than good.
Good luck Hun and I do hope it all works out for you. Hard lesson learned but at least it happened early on in your career and you wont make the same mistake again.:hug: