Long Hair, it was nice being with you
This was gonna happen sooner or later; the sooner the better actually, because my hair was already giving me too much trouble. Drying by fan took more than an hour, I kept getting the ends wet when washing stuff because they'd "follow" me into the sink or bucket, my head was getting randomly tugged whenever strands got caught in my watch strap or my belt if I wore it higher on the waist...the list really goes on. Plus everyone could see my hair was dying already - I'd been looking like a shaggy lion for months, and littering a whole trail of fallen hair everywhere I went.
This year I decided that when I'd finally sum up the courage to go for a haircut (no I don't fear it like kids do; rather, every time I get a haircut it ends up disastrous and takes months to grow out into a decent look), I'd visit a stylist. Not the less-than-20-bucks neighbourhood shop, but a proper salon where I could get recommendations on whether the look I wanted was suitable. And since my trip's just around the corner, I wanted to get it over and done with, so a few days ago I started Googling for good places to get a haircut. After reading reviews, I decided on KIZUKI+LIM since there was hardly a bad word about it.
Plus I'm biased towards most Japan-related stuff, haha.
Yesterday was a busy busy day. I had to take a day off from work because I was way overdue for all the errands I planned to run. Woke up early, went to the bank to close my joint account, set up a new single account and the GIRO arrangment for paying off my tuition fees, visited the dental clinic to clean my teeth, and then off it was to Raffles Hotel for the big moment.
I had a bit of fun pretending to stroll around like a tourist, but in actual fact I was trying very hard to find my way to level 3 where Kizuki was without looking lost. Then when I was finally there, I tugged on the wrong set of doors and I think the assistant who saw me outside was trying hard not to LOL at me.
I'd already seen pictures of the interior design, but seeing the actual stuff was really refreshing. The salon has origami-inspired 3D walls separating the main area from the waiting area and washing room, and a lot of the decor is reminiscent of hippie cafes. Very nice, minimalist clean look to the place...a little too sterile looking to put first-timers at ease though, but I still like it a lot. Save for the jazz tracks playing in the background, the salon was pretty quiet. Blondie guy (the one who saw me at the wrong set of doors) greeted me nicely and requested that I fill in my details on a card, then introduced me to my assigned stylist.
I'd actually wanted Ryu Oba to do my hair since he's the top stylist there, but when I called to make an appointment I was told that the senior stylists were out of Singapore so I didn't choose anyone. I was hoping to be assigned Sakurai Shunsuke, so I was a little worried when Waka-san turned up instead. Read that he's soft-spoken so I didn't know if I could communicate well with him.
He sat me down, then introduced himself and asked if I could speak Japanese. I wasn't very confident about conversing in the language since I'd gone rusty on my grammer but thank goodness I could understand most of what he said, because the entire time I was there, about 80% of our conversation was in Japanese. He commented that my hair was really long...Waka-san, I'm really sorry I haven't cut my hair in almost 1.5 years (which probably is blasphemic to any stylist), but I hope you understood it when I said I'm scared to cut my hair because it never turned out well before.
Showed him reference pictures and discussed the hairstyle, then he took me to the washing room. I really like the service! The shampooing was really nice and gentle, with head massage added. None of the drowning-ears-in-shampoo-and-water unpleasantness and the chair secured my neck nicely without any discomfort.
Back at the main area, he got down to business assessing the fit of the hairstyle and started cutting. I'm not too good with small talk so it was great that he wasn't the chatty and nosy sort, but he did make an effort to engage me in conversation so I shared with him my hair woes and he dished out advice while shearing my locks. He could tell I was feeling nervous and he tried to put me at ease with funny comments and actions...like stopping halfway to pick a handful of my hair off the floor and saying "So much!" or telling me "Never mind, never mind. Healthy!" when I looked forlorn as he was just about done with the cutting and my hair was more than half gone.
The scariest part of the cutting was when he decided to give me bangs. When we discussed my reference pictures, I could not decide whether to touch my fringe so he said we could leave it until later. Midway through the cut, he decided it was better I trimmed it so I grudgingly permitted. We agreed on brow-length, and after combing out the fringe portion, he gave me a few seconds to steel myself with a warning of "This one, must do fast cut" as he grabbed my hair, and then unceremoniously halved the length in one snip.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO T______T
I got a Jessica Alba medium bob cut with blunt bangs at the neighbourhood salon several years ago that ended up NOTHING like her hairstyle. I was given a wispy doll fringe and a limp excuse of a bob - it was one of the most horrible decisions I made about my hair. Probably the reason why I resisted a trip to the salon in the past 1.5 years too. So when Waka-san was working on my bangs, I could feel the familiar bloodrush coursing in my body. Not kidding. It's always happened when I watched someone do something drastic to my hair that I could not envision turning out well. I was probably radiating panic, because he sensed it right away when he was done with my fringe and kept asking concernedly "大丈夫ですか?" while shaping up the rest of my hair. On the umpteenth time, I whispered a "子供みたいね" sadly.
Earlier on, I told Waka-san that I wanted to cut, colour and have treatment but he told me I didn't need treatment. Midway through cutting, he spoke about the disadvantages of colouring and how it didn't seem to suit my habits (since I don't colour often). I decided to trust him and opt for highlights of his recommended colour instead. He introduced Tomoko-san to me and she took over the highlighting, making light conversation once in a while. First time getting highlights so I don't know if it's the standard process, but Tomoko-san was really gentle and careful about how she sectioned my hair.
Barely 10 minutes after she was done, Waka-san came over to pull off the foil pieces and took me for a second round of washing. Yay head massage. After rubbing in some hair mask, Waka-san and Tomoko-san proceeded to blow-dry my hair and I could feel my heart lifting. やっぱりスタイリストは素晴らしいです! What I saw as quite a bit of a disaster in the wet look turned out really well when the water was gone. When it was almost dry, he got out the curling iron and styled the ends with soft curls, finishing with another dollop of mask. I tried my best to observe how Waka-san handled my hair while drying and curling it; hopefully I can recreate the look on my own. At that very moment he said "Done! Finish!" I had this strong urge to get up and give Waka-san a hug.
That was how happy I felt with what he'd done. I don't think any words were good enough to express my heartfelt graditude because he restored my faith in salons with just one visit. All I could muster at the end was several thank yous in English and Japanese and a couple bows as I paid and then left.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bad
No one told me I had bits of hair on my face when I left LOL! No wonder people were staring at me before I saw my face in the mirror at the washroom in Raffles City. Tomoko-san only got me magazines and water when I was just about done with highlights, but that was okay for me since I was too fascinated with what they were doing and pretty contented to just sit and watch. Might not be everyone's cup of tea to be served reading materials that late though, if you're picky about such things. Chairs at the main area are not the usual cushy and adjustable salon chairs; they were regular chairs so after sitting for more than an hour, I got tired of holding myself in a certain posture. The chairs in the washing room are much better.
The Good
LOTS OF IT. If you don't like incessant small talk, Kizuki is a fantastic place to avoid all that. The staff there are very polite and not loud at all, neither do they gossip non-stop like the hairdressers do in neighbourhood salons. Another point I really appreciated is the lack of hard-sell: Waka-san did ask me if I had shampoo left at home during the second wash, but he didn't try to sell me anything. Instead, I enquired about the mask and shampoo and ended up purchasing the latter.
Waka-san really demonstrated the professionalism of a stylist. He just needed about a minute to study one of the pictures I shared and then he was doing his own assessments the rest of the way as he shaped my hair. He asked me about my preferences and what I wanted to do but also advised against the unnecessary and the unsuitable options, and taught me how to care for my hair.
Service is also good - you'd be asked to choose a drink and offered different magazines (you can probably ask for them if you don't want to be served late). If you wanna take a drink, the stylist will stop cutting to let you do so. If you wear earrings, you'll be given a small cup to place them in when you take them off, and you'll be reminded to put them back on before you leave. I was also told to watch my step when exiting the washing room because there's a slope leading down to the main area. Waka-san seated me the way men seat ladies at restaurants, and I also like the fact I had a towel placed over my lap in the washing room. Head massage! Great shampooing technique, and did I also mention head massage? HEAD MASSAGE! Haha, I really liked that...would've been great if the shampooing lasted longer. He saw me right to the door when I left and graced me with the standard 90-degree bow.
Attentiveness - I gotta give it to Waka-san for sensing my emotional state. All these years as I sat in salon chairs breaking down internally while watching hairdressers semi-ruin my hair, never once was I asked if I felt okay. I'm obsessed over my hair (even thought I don't care for it as well as I should), and I mean it when I say I'm devastated by a bad haircut. I don't think anyone could really understand how sad I'd been almost after every trip to a neighbourhood shop. The fact that Waka-san tried to alleviate my nervousness and repeatedly showed concern was a huge plus; it was a huge decision to chop more than half of my hair off after avoiding it for so many months and I really needed the assurance that this was the right decision. Honestly? I could still have tolerated the trouble till end of 2013 and not touch my hair at all despite everyone else around me urging me to chop it off. I guess Tomoko-san also knew I was sad about my bangs when she came over to help, because she told me she liked it and that it suited me more than the grown-out version. 智子さん、ありがとうね! Also, many thanks to Tomoko-san for the lovely highlights.
Last but not least, 10% off on your first visit! I thought I'd splash close to 400 or more there but with the shampoo and whatever I'd done, it didn't even hit 300 bucks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing it all out because it's the first time I've spent so much on a haircut, but the experience was worth every single cent. I'm glad I went to Kizuki and met Waka-san, who did his best to put me at ease and did a fantastic job with my hair. I feel sorry for having made that comment after Waka-san was done with my fringe...I hope he knows from how happy I was at the end of it that he really gained my trust. I'm glad that he was assigned to me! He's really nice and gentle; I'd still like to try having Oba-san cut my hair but perhaps I'll only choose him if Waka-san isn't around. 若さん、私は本当に感謝しています。3〜4ヶ月の時にお会いしましょう!
This year I decided that when I'd finally sum up the courage to go for a haircut (no I don't fear it like kids do; rather, every time I get a haircut it ends up disastrous and takes months to grow out into a decent look), I'd visit a stylist. Not the less-than-20-bucks neighbourhood shop, but a proper salon where I could get recommendations on whether the look I wanted was suitable. And since my trip's just around the corner, I wanted to get it over and done with, so a few days ago I started Googling for good places to get a haircut. After reading reviews, I decided on KIZUKI+LIM since there was hardly a bad word about it.
Plus I'm biased towards most Japan-related stuff, haha.
Yesterday was a busy busy day. I had to take a day off from work because I was way overdue for all the errands I planned to run. Woke up early, went to the bank to close my joint account, set up a new single account and the GIRO arrangment for paying off my tuition fees, visited the dental clinic to clean my teeth, and then off it was to Raffles Hotel for the big moment.
I had a bit of fun pretending to stroll around like a tourist, but in actual fact I was trying very hard to find my way to level 3 where Kizuki was without looking lost. Then when I was finally there, I tugged on the wrong set of doors and I think the assistant who saw me outside was trying hard not to LOL at me.
I'd already seen pictures of the interior design, but seeing the actual stuff was really refreshing. The salon has origami-inspired 3D walls separating the main area from the waiting area and washing room, and a lot of the decor is reminiscent of hippie cafes. Very nice, minimalist clean look to the place...a little too sterile looking to put first-timers at ease though, but I still like it a lot. Save for the jazz tracks playing in the background, the salon was pretty quiet. Blondie guy (the one who saw me at the wrong set of doors) greeted me nicely and requested that I fill in my details on a card, then introduced me to my assigned stylist.
I'd actually wanted Ryu Oba to do my hair since he's the top stylist there, but when I called to make an appointment I was told that the senior stylists were out of Singapore so I didn't choose anyone. I was hoping to be assigned Sakurai Shunsuke, so I was a little worried when Waka-san turned up instead. Read that he's soft-spoken so I didn't know if I could communicate well with him.
He sat me down, then introduced himself and asked if I could speak Japanese. I wasn't very confident about conversing in the language since I'd gone rusty on my grammer but thank goodness I could understand most of what he said, because the entire time I was there, about 80% of our conversation was in Japanese. He commented that my hair was really long...Waka-san, I'm really sorry I haven't cut my hair in almost 1.5 years (which probably is blasphemic to any stylist), but I hope you understood it when I said I'm scared to cut my hair because it never turned out well before.
Showed him reference pictures and discussed the hairstyle, then he took me to the washing room. I really like the service! The shampooing was really nice and gentle, with head massage added. None of the drowning-ears-in-shampoo-and-water unpleasantness and the chair secured my neck nicely without any discomfort.
Back at the main area, he got down to business assessing the fit of the hairstyle and started cutting. I'm not too good with small talk so it was great that he wasn't the chatty and nosy sort, but he did make an effort to engage me in conversation so I shared with him my hair woes and he dished out advice while shearing my locks. He could tell I was feeling nervous and he tried to put me at ease with funny comments and actions...like stopping halfway to pick a handful of my hair off the floor and saying "So much!" or telling me "Never mind, never mind. Healthy!" when I looked forlorn as he was just about done with the cutting and my hair was more than half gone.
The scariest part of the cutting was when he decided to give me bangs. When we discussed my reference pictures, I could not decide whether to touch my fringe so he said we could leave it until later. Midway through the cut, he decided it was better I trimmed it so I grudgingly permitted. We agreed on brow-length, and after combing out the fringe portion, he gave me a few seconds to steel myself with a warning of "This one, must do fast cut" as he grabbed my hair, and then unceremoniously halved the length in one snip.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO T______T
I got a Jessica Alba medium bob cut with blunt bangs at the neighbourhood salon several years ago that ended up NOTHING like her hairstyle. I was given a wispy doll fringe and a limp excuse of a bob - it was one of the most horrible decisions I made about my hair. Probably the reason why I resisted a trip to the salon in the past 1.5 years too. So when Waka-san was working on my bangs, I could feel the familiar bloodrush coursing in my body. Not kidding. It's always happened when I watched someone do something drastic to my hair that I could not envision turning out well. I was probably radiating panic, because he sensed it right away when he was done with my fringe and kept asking concernedly "大丈夫ですか?" while shaping up the rest of my hair. On the umpteenth time, I whispered a "子供みたいね" sadly.
Earlier on, I told Waka-san that I wanted to cut, colour and have treatment but he told me I didn't need treatment. Midway through cutting, he spoke about the disadvantages of colouring and how it didn't seem to suit my habits (since I don't colour often). I decided to trust him and opt for highlights of his recommended colour instead. He introduced Tomoko-san to me and she took over the highlighting, making light conversation once in a while. First time getting highlights so I don't know if it's the standard process, but Tomoko-san was really gentle and careful about how she sectioned my hair.
Barely 10 minutes after she was done, Waka-san came over to pull off the foil pieces and took me for a second round of washing. Yay head massage. After rubbing in some hair mask, Waka-san and Tomoko-san proceeded to blow-dry my hair and I could feel my heart lifting. やっぱりスタイリストは素晴らしいです! What I saw as quite a bit of a disaster in the wet look turned out really well when the water was gone. When it was almost dry, he got out the curling iron and styled the ends with soft curls, finishing with another dollop of mask. I tried my best to observe how Waka-san handled my hair while drying and curling it; hopefully I can recreate the look on my own. At that very moment he said "Done! Finish!" I had this strong urge to get up and give Waka-san a hug.
That was how happy I felt with what he'd done. I don't think any words were good enough to express my heartfelt graditude because he restored my faith in salons with just one visit. All I could muster at the end was several thank yous in English and Japanese and a couple bows as I paid and then left.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Bad
No one told me I had bits of hair on my face when I left LOL! No wonder people were staring at me before I saw my face in the mirror at the washroom in Raffles City. Tomoko-san only got me magazines and water when I was just about done with highlights, but that was okay for me since I was too fascinated with what they were doing and pretty contented to just sit and watch. Might not be everyone's cup of tea to be served reading materials that late though, if you're picky about such things. Chairs at the main area are not the usual cushy and adjustable salon chairs; they were regular chairs so after sitting for more than an hour, I got tired of holding myself in a certain posture. The chairs in the washing room are much better.
The Good
LOTS OF IT. If you don't like incessant small talk, Kizuki is a fantastic place to avoid all that. The staff there are very polite and not loud at all, neither do they gossip non-stop like the hairdressers do in neighbourhood salons. Another point I really appreciated is the lack of hard-sell: Waka-san did ask me if I had shampoo left at home during the second wash, but he didn't try to sell me anything. Instead, I enquired about the mask and shampoo and ended up purchasing the latter.
Waka-san really demonstrated the professionalism of a stylist. He just needed about a minute to study one of the pictures I shared and then he was doing his own assessments the rest of the way as he shaped my hair. He asked me about my preferences and what I wanted to do but also advised against the unnecessary and the unsuitable options, and taught me how to care for my hair.
Service is also good - you'd be asked to choose a drink and offered different magazines (you can probably ask for them if you don't want to be served late). If you wanna take a drink, the stylist will stop cutting to let you do so. If you wear earrings, you'll be given a small cup to place them in when you take them off, and you'll be reminded to put them back on before you leave. I was also told to watch my step when exiting the washing room because there's a slope leading down to the main area. Waka-san seated me the way men seat ladies at restaurants, and I also like the fact I had a towel placed over my lap in the washing room. Head massage! Great shampooing technique, and did I also mention head massage? HEAD MASSAGE! Haha, I really liked that...would've been great if the shampooing lasted longer. He saw me right to the door when I left and graced me with the standard 90-degree bow.
Attentiveness - I gotta give it to Waka-san for sensing my emotional state. All these years as I sat in salon chairs breaking down internally while watching hairdressers semi-ruin my hair, never once was I asked if I felt okay. I'm obsessed over my hair (even thought I don't care for it as well as I should), and I mean it when I say I'm devastated by a bad haircut. I don't think anyone could really understand how sad I'd been almost after every trip to a neighbourhood shop. The fact that Waka-san tried to alleviate my nervousness and repeatedly showed concern was a huge plus; it was a huge decision to chop more than half of my hair off after avoiding it for so many months and I really needed the assurance that this was the right decision. Honestly? I could still have tolerated the trouble till end of 2013 and not touch my hair at all despite everyone else around me urging me to chop it off. I guess Tomoko-san also knew I was sad about my bangs when she came over to help, because she told me she liked it and that it suited me more than the grown-out version. 智子さん、ありがとうね! Also, many thanks to Tomoko-san for the lovely highlights.
Last but not least, 10% off on your first visit! I thought I'd splash close to 400 or more there but with the shampoo and whatever I'd done, it didn't even hit 300 bucks.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Writing it all out because it's the first time I've spent so much on a haircut, but the experience was worth every single cent. I'm glad I went to Kizuki and met Waka-san, who did his best to put me at ease and did a fantastic job with my hair. I feel sorry for having made that comment after Waka-san was done with my fringe...I hope he knows from how happy I was at the end of it that he really gained my trust. I'm glad that he was assigned to me! He's really nice and gentle; I'd still like to try having Oba-san cut my hair but perhaps I'll only choose him if Waka-san isn't around. 若さん、私は本当に感謝しています。3〜4ヶ月の時にお会いしましょう!