snip snip!

i think i can speak for most women out there when i say that women get easily bored with our hair. now, i'm not highly experimental but i do like a bit of a change every now and then.

i remember it was barely over two months ago when i had the itch to do something drastic to my hair. i decided i wouldn't cut it because i slaved for a year to wait for it to grow back from my last impulsive trip to the hair dresser's. i recruited a couple girlfriends on payday to get our hair done. honest to god, i walked in with the sole intention of having my locks layered. as i sat on the black leather chair, waiting for my stylist to gather his tools, i picked up a hair magazine and started flipping.

and that's all it took. i went from wanting to get a $35 haircut to agreeing to pay $239 (plus 3 and a half hours) for a digital perm. it turned out pretty well; it was drastic enough a change that some people liked it and others had reservations about it.

i loved it, i loved the volume and the spunk that it added to my outfits.

until two days ago.

i'd gotten quite tired of the curls. although they were loosening up into nice waves, i was still high maintenance and required a lot of product application. (i used 3 different kinds!)

i'd initially struck a deal with myself that i'd get it straightened sometime in september, just before my birthday but i found myself thinking about it so hard that i decided to screw it and have it done anyway.

just the day before, i got my bangs trimmed at a nearby salon and casually enquired how much it would cost to have my hair rebonded. they quoted me about $180. i felt an ache in my chest. yes, it wasn't as much as the perm but all in the span of less than three months! that was a lot of money.

so at work the next day i started googling for reasonably priced neighbourhood salons and eventually came across a couple reviews for Snip Avenue.

they're a local chain of beauty salons with several outlets around the island. what i liked about it was that they even had their own website!

i found the number to the salon nearest to the office and gave them a call to enquire on their charges. the number i first heard shocked me. $38 for a rebonding session. now i've had some bad experiences with rebonding at Far East Plaza before, where they used cheap rubbish chemicals and i almost cried when i left the parlour, and even then it wasn't this cheap.
so just to be sure i enquired further and found out that they also offer shiseido and l'oreal rebonding packages. perfect! i probably should mention, just about a month ago i bought a bottle of liese bubble colour and DIYed my hair a medium brown. so with all the chemically damaging rituals, i knew i was risking it all by rebonding my hair yet again but i trusted shiseido, having done it umpteen times before. to my surprise, their shiseido offer was still extremely attractive - $88! ($119 with moisture treatment)
so i made my appointment and left work half an hour early.

Blk 201E Tampines Street 23 #01-116 Tel: 67850406

now, this being your avergae neighbourhood salon, don't expect royalty treatment. they won't offer you a drink and there's lousy music on a radio but at least the stylists were polite. i didn't get my stylist's name but he was nice enough to go through the different packages with me after inspecting the condition of my hair. as it turns out, he wasn't a very gentle handler. there were many instances when he tugged on a tangled lock and he even managed to accidentally splash a couple droplets of water on my face while he was rinsing out my hair.
BUT

i had to give it him. he didn't rush through the process at all. i'm sure some of you are well aware that a procedure like this can take up to 4 hours. the salon closes at 8.30pm and my appointment was made for 6pm. and yet, he was meticulous enough to ensure every strand of hair was coated with cream and then took his time with the flat iron, straightening out every section until he was satisfied with it.

by the time he began to apply the last cream, the salon was already empty and the other stylists were cleaning up. i even had to pay the bill at this point so that they could tally the cash register. and still, the man took his time and completed the job without any help from his colleagues. so he didn't exactly have the flair handling long hair. in fact, he looked rather awkward at it. but he was a true perfectionist. he even managed to salvage my ends, they don't look all that fried at all! and all for $88. (i didn't manage to do treatment because i understand they were pressed for time.)

now, i didn't have the chance to sample their cutting and colouring skills but if a rebonding job is what you're after, i say Snip Avenue is definitely value for money. they even offer hair treatments at a promotional price of $15 at the moment. personally, i wouldn't dare go near the $38 procedure. and i still think it's dodgy for any salon to be using cheap rubbish chemicals but anybody who is smart enough to go for shiseido or l'oreal ($98, $129 with treatment) will be saving a lot of money.

so, how does my hair look now? you're just going to have to keep reading to find out.