Because of this I’m quite picky when it comes to salons. Azta in Katipunan was the only salon I really liked. When I moved to the UK, I was pretty doomed. But I had no choice when my hair had to be trimmed - wala kaming lahing Edward Scissorhands. I’ve had a few cuts here and there but even Toni & Guy didn’t quite cut it for me (pun intended). I remember spending way too much on three haircuts until finally some cheapy salon managed to get it right. Since then I’d always wait til my next Manila trip to go to good old trusty Azta.
The past few months though, I’ve been bored of my hair - I’ve had it cut and done last January and my ends needed trimming. Last Saturday, I finally decided I wanted a change in colour and a bit of a trim…
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| circa 2009 |
I booked an appointment with Rush in Covent Garden and opted for the INOA head colour service. INOA is short for ‘Innovative No Ammonia’ and is L’Oreal’s ammonia-free hair colour line. Yayness. The less chems, the better! After having quite dark hair (with some light brown streaks) I was really hoping to have this colour again…
| Jason, myself & the Chapstick |
…but the style director said my hair was too dark; I can’t go lighter than shade number 4.something. On the colour map shade 4.something actually looked like a nice shade of red/brown when applied to my hair colour/highlights albeit slightly darker than what I wanted. I was about to protest but he is the stylist; he does hair for a living so I entrusted my tresses to him. I’ve never had my hair coloured here professionally because 1) it’s super expensive and 2) people seem to have better hair when they DIY (dye it themselves) so that’s what I used to do (my ex used to do it for me).
| I’m back to black! |
About an hour, shampoo + conditioner + head massage and a rough blow dry later, it pretty much looked like I had a full head tint of black! It didn’t look like the colour it said it would look like on the shade map (and yes, I was looking at how the colour would look like when applied to dark hair, ie MY kind of dark hair). Stress. If you look closely at the photo, you can see where the colour’s hit my highlights. I was really disappointed. I felt like I should’ve just bought drugstore DIY kits instead of going to the salon. Boo. Or perhaps I should’ve just stomped a foot and cried, ‘BUT I REALLY REALLY WANT THIS COLOUR!!!’ Boo hoo. The only options I have now are a) have it done again at a different salon so that I’d satisfy my boredom or b) wait a few months and have my hair re-done. I’m guessing I’ll have to choose the latter as I really don’t like doing a lot to my hair and immediate dye-ing might cause it to die young.
Tears.
But hey… at least, unlike money on trees and hearts trampled upon, hair grows. Unless you’re bald. Of course.
