Colour Hair @ Essensuals

Here is my hair 8 days after my rebonding! :)

It's not that super ugly flat and straight, but the 'natural straight' I want.. I don't know how to describe it, but it's nice! Only thing is the ends kept tangling no matter how much hair treatment I put.. I think it's too dry. Anyway, I started out the day super excited about colouring my hair!

Here's a picture of my black roots..

It's not really obvious in this picture because of the lighting, but in a strong light or sunlight, it's super obvious.. and one of my pet peeve is seeing people with black roots that has grown quite long and the other half is coloured hair -- especially gold! You ever see girls who tie their hair in ponytails and their hair is black but the ponytail is gold? Look damn horrible and fugly! And there are many of such people around!! They only colour their hair before Chinese New Year, than leave the colour on until the next Chinese New Year! ONE WHOLE YEAR! I hate it.. I think 3 months is the maximum I can tolerate my black roots if the base colour is not too light. But if you bleach your hair to blond or super light brown, than please please go back for touchup!

Also, I covered my eyes cos I look super sleepy in this picture.. I slept at 9.30am today and woke up at 11.30am!! Madness lah! Super bad insomnia last night.. The previous picture was better cos that was after 10 attempts of taking a decent shot, than when I wanna take my hair roots shot I realized I was super late for my appointment cos it's at 12pm!! So I only took one and it turned out super ugly. :(

Anyway I chiong down to Bugis Street and reached there miraculously at 12.17pm..! Than Bryan sat thru with me while we decided on the colour -- dark brown, and then started to apply the colour on my hair roots and said he will come back and comb out the colour 20minutes later.

Supposedly it should be on for 20minutes, but it's only after 40mins before another hairstylist came and applied the colour for me (Bryan was busy with another customer who came in at 1pm).. Maybe the colour needs longer time to 'eat in'?

Anyways, I was brought to wash off the colour and a treatment was applied on my hair for less than 1 minute than washed off.. I remembered the 1st time I was there, the other guy put on the treatment for 15mins while I was lying down at the sink thingy before he washed it off.. That's why I asked the girl who helped me this time round if she applied the treatment cos I assumed it also have to be left on for 15mins and she said she did it.. Oh wells. Bryan only did the roots for me and came back at the end after she finished blow-dry to trim my hair.

Ok, at this point if Pipimon is reading my blog he will surely nag at me and say I should only pay half the director's fee if he is only there for half the process.. T_T" Cos he like to ask if the 'director' is there from step 1 till the end if I pay extra.. Like when I go to SuperCuts previously and pay the Director cut & colour surcharge but Andy always delegate everything to his staff than come at the end for 10mins to cut my hair but charge a premium for the whole process.

While waiting for the colour to set in, I was binge-reading the magazines.. I think I read 8 magazines from page to page in that few hours..

Wany arrived at 1.50pm for her 1pm appointment.. WOMAN! U DAMN LATE LAH! But luckily there was a mix-up on the appointments as they thought she was coming in at 12pm like me and the next available appointment is at 2pm.. so she just had to wait for a little while before her stylist was available to cut for her.

She asked for her hair to be cut shorter this time and it's really cute! I like the pixie look! :) Her hair cut + treatment was S$50 nett including the 7% GST and she received a $5 voucher that she can use next time.

I did not take a decent photo of myself so I am not posting one yet... Also, honestly I am not 100% happy with my colour job because I feel it's too dark. I wanted dark brown but the result came out more to BLACK especially at the bottom part. I am not sure if it's the lighting, but I feel that the top part (roots) is lighter than the bottom part (ends) of my hair.. It's like a gradient of colour from dark brown to black and it's horrible -- unless I am wrong and just being paranoid.

Compared to my 1st dye job at Essensuals, this time was definitely disappointing and not up to par.

And why I did not point it out to Bryan? Well, cos I didn't realize the colour contrast until I was outside the salon in the sunlight when I looked at my ends and saw that it was blackish and got a shock and than went to the toilet at Bugis Junction to double check, then I realized the colour looks a bit uneven.. but Wany say it looks fine.. (But I don't trust her cos she never colour her hair before! Haha!) So I want a few second and third opinion before I do something to fix my hair. I shall ask Yaya or Smallgirl tomorrow when we meet to help me see my hair colour in the outside daylight to see if the colour is consistent.. But even if it really is consistent, the colour really turned darker than I expected.. I put it against my Pipimon's black bag to compare and it's almost 95% the same colour. :(

My total bill this time was $125 for colour + additional $50 for director's fee. Total is S$187.25 nett including 7% GST. Bryan said he will waive off the cut fee from the bill for me, also he did not cut much cos he say have to let the ends be 'heavy' to prevent it from curling upwards and become frizzy..

So all in all, my rebonding + colour: S$263.43 + S$187.25 = S$450.68

Even with the 20% discount on the surcharge previously and the waiver of the hair cut fee, it's really kinda steep and I may be reconsidering going back to Elaine at City Square (JB) who gives consistent results at half the price but only drawback is her inability to keep to my appointment slots at times. But if I can save S$200 by wasting time to go into Malaysia.. than I think it's money well saved.

I've mentioned in my 1st post about Essensuals Bugis that they do sponsor quite a number of popular bloggers for hair cuts, colours and stuff and I believe there are people out there who want to give the salon a try but is afraid that the reviews of the bloggers may be skewed since they don't need to pay a single cent and we all know that majority of the people will say good things about free things to keep them coming. Thus they try to read and see the results from real customers like myself. I realized this because there are many hits on my blog under the google search for 'Essensual Bugis. I also said previously that I am not sponsored, not paid, no freebies so my feedback about the salon is my honest feedback on my own personal experience which I paid for. And I did list down on my prices and the discount that Bryan gave.

So the excitement I felt when I woke up kinda turned to apprehension and warping into depression.. Haiyah.. I am super sensitive about hair issues one ok? Don't judge me please. And since I am kinda upset about my hair colour now so I shall stop talking about it until I get my 2nd and 3rd opinion from other people.. but meanwhile, my take on the place is:

Ambience: Fantastic! 5/5

Pushy Hard Sell Tactics: None! Love it!

Value for money: Depends

Will I go back again?: Maybe, maybe not..

We went to Mos Burger for a late lunch at around 4pm and sat till 8pm! We did not meet for weeks and there's a lot of catching up to do!!

Afterwards we walked around and I bought a birthday cake for an ex-colleague of mine who is celebrating her birthday next week then went to buy some stuff at the supermarket..

Decided to buy some snacks to munch on cos we were feeling hungry (already 9pm!) sp we bought some snacks and drinks from I love Taimei at the basement of Bugis Junction.. I thought there is only 1 outlet at Bugis Street but there's another one here! We took the lift up to Level 3 where there are 2 benches for people to sit.

Super pathetic that the mall is so big but there are so little benches around.. I hate this kind of inconsiderate thinking.. wah! Must force people to sit at cafes that pay the management obscene amounts of rent just to chit-chat ah? Sometimes it's not I am cheapo and not willing to pay S$8 for a stupid cup of coffee so I can sit and rest my feet.. but it's so riddiculous that there are no seats around for shoppers who shop and pay money to buy stuff at a shopping mall! Tsk.

My wintermelon tea (as usual) and her caramel milk tea!

We ordered the Spicy Mexican fries, cheesy fries & the Xiao S fried chicken. The spicy fries is damn bloody spicy! The crazy idiot put so much powder, I feel like I am eating powder instead of fries.

Wany's first time trying! :)

Afterwards she took train back while I took bus home.. Gonna go and crash now.. I only survived on 2 hours of sleep for the whole day and I am not young anymore... Good night everyone! :D