Bye Bye Hermione Hair

I found my Holy Grail hair when I got a digital perm three years ago. I know it’s what suits me best, but the problem is that perming makes my hair look really dry, so I got my last perm last December 2011 and resorted to manually curling my hair instead, and it actually looks better done this way. And it looks great as long as it’s wet. But the moment it dries…

Hermione Granger [source]

Unfortunately my hair’s natural state is like Hermione Granger’s – very bushy. When I was in high school, one of my classmates said my hair made me look like a witch. (Well Hermione is, so I suppose, in a way, she was right about that now, but back then we didn’t even know about Harry Potter yet.) Another classmate called me Tina Turner because my hair was so big, he said, and then he started singing “What’s love got to do with it?” while everyone laughed at me. Now that I think about it, my classmates were pretty mean.

But I digress. Anyway, back to the present…

I was becoming problematic because my hair was starting to get all Hermione on me again so I’ve been keeping them tied back and letting them down only when they were still wet. My hair is so thick that if I wash it in the morning and twist it up in a knot right after, it stays wet for hours until I am ready to let them down for an occasion like dinner or something. I know it’s not healthy to do that, though.

I finally got fed up and decided to get a rebond, not because I want straight hair but because I want thin hair. Does that even make sense? So last Friday when I had a day off, I went to this salon recommended by my friend Maya whose rebonded hair looks so nice and natural-looking. The place is called De Artiste and it’s located in Lucky Plaza. I called for an appointment beforehand because Maya says they get a lot of customers. They charged S$138 for my hair length which is about the normal going rate in small salons in Singapore, I think.

Even though the place is in LP, the salon is not manned by Filipinos. I liked my hair stylist because he was quite funny. After he had put the first medicine in and blew my hair dry, he joked that it was done. I was surprised and said, “Really?” because my hair didn’t look rebonded at all. He laughed and said that he was just kidding and said, “I still need to ‘plantsa.'” Plantsa is tagalog for iron so I was surprised that he knew the word because he’s not Filipino, but a chinese malay. He knew quite a few tagalog words, actually!

With my joker hairstylist

Everyone in the salon was quite friendly and they even offered me and Mildred some hot tea even though Mildred wasn’t a customer. When she asked if she could charge her phone, they gladly allowed her.

“Dred, can you take a picture of me please?”

The process took about four and a half hours, giving me enough time to head for my dentist appointment. And the result? Tada!

Before and after. You have to look unhappy in ‘before’ pics, right?

I still think I look better with curly hair but that I look younger with straight hair. I will probably resort to manually curling my hair in the near future but I’m glad it’s no longer so thick and bushy now, and I didn’t need to cast a witch’s spell to do so!

De Artiste Salon
#03-045 Lucky Plaza
304 Orchard Road 
Tel No 6732 6844