Sizzlers, Toa Payoh

Had a craving for the salad bar at Sizzler's so I asked Santi Guniang & Pipimon to accompany me there for lunch today..

Every main course ordered comes with a complimentary salad bar buffet (above) so it's quite a good deal. There are soups, frozen yogurt, fruits, salads, pasta and many more.. Average cost per person including drinks (not free flow) is less than S$20 for lunch. :)

Santi guniang! :)

Pipimon also had the same Spicy Chicken Chop as her.. I ate the Fish & Chips which sucks cos it's too oily.. No pictures cos I am still upset about my hair. :(

Santi guniang bought me stuff from Taiwan & Hokkaido when she went for her tourleading trips! :) Thank you!!

Chloe's Ball Ball Biscuit

Chloe loves playing with her "ball ball biscuit" which is basically a ball that has an opening which dispenses biscuits as you roll it around..

I always give her the ball filled with biscuits to entertain her when I am going out and leaving her alone at home so she has something to play with and which is also rewarding. :)

Essensuals Bugis sucks

My 1st experience in March 2011 was great thus I went back for rebonding then colouring, which turned out horrible.

It is not catastrophically bad, like I became bald or something, but unacceptable as the results were bad considering it supposedly a very professional salon and not those neighbourhood cheapo types (plenty at my area which only charge S$50 regardless of length). Moreover I paid a surcharge fee for the director's service! To top the cake, they offered very lousy service recovery.

Yes, they were polite about it but basically the bottomline to me was "We are sorry your hair colour did not turn out right, just wash it more often and see what happens". Blaming the results on the condition of my hair instead of their skills, when it should be "We are sorry for botching up the colour of your hair. Come back in a few weeks and we will redo it for you free of charge and throw in some treatment to improve the condition of your hair".

I was whatsapping Yaya & Smallgirl on Tuesday night and both of them encouraged me to go back to the salon and see what they can do to fix it. Smallgirl was suggesting that I demand them to recolour my whole hair and offer at least 6 x free hair treatments until my hair is smooth and not dry like now or a refund of my money and go to her cousin's boyfriend salon at Kovan to fix the mess.

I am not sure on what to do, so I left an FB message on Essensuals Bugis page to show them how horrible my hair colour was and asked them how to remedy the problem. I took almost 2 hours to type the letter because I was contemplating if I should post it publicly on their wall, as advised by Smallgirl & Yaya, so everyone can see how lousy and horrible my hair was.. But I decided to be nice and post a private message instead..

I posted the message at around 1am (that's why it says Wednesday) and called them around 2pm to see if they received my message as I have not received a reply on FB.

The receptionist (yes, the blur & toot one) was working and it took her 5 times before she got my name right. It's JASMINE! Not JESSIE, JESSLYN, JACKY.. Seriously, they need to give that woman a tight slap or send her for some language courses.

Explained to her a few times on what happened and whether I can come down to look for Bryan to ask him if there's any solution for my hair. I keep explaining to her that I coloured my hair on Monday 20June but she misunderstands me and kept thinking I want to go down for an appointment to colour my hair!

Seriously, when a pissed off customer is trying to be nice but faced with an idiot on the phone, it really tests my patience. A lot.

I made an appointment for 11am today and arrived at 10.55am. Guess I was too early as the salon was not opened but a few of the staff were waiting outside the door.. went for a walk and came back at 11.10am.. still not opened. Waited until 11.15am before they opened the place.

So once I'm in, I showed Bryan my hair and he said it is really not obvious until he scrutinize my hair a small strand at a time.. He commented that the picture I showed him (which was in my previous post) is super obvious, but strangely it doesn't seem that way in his salon. And he also said that if he were to know it's that bad, he would not have allow me to leave the salon on the day itself..

But even if we know it was this bad, what could he have done on that day?

I told him it's the lighting of the salon.. too dim and it's not white light so the colour doesn't really show.

Advice to anyone who wanna go there and colour your hair.. Bring your own camera and take a picture of your hair with flash before leaving the salon. The first time I went I did that and the colour was nice. Big mistake not to do it the second time.

I asked him why is the colour so inconsistent, and he explained that because I rebonded my hair, the hair is more porous thus 'eats' the colour in faster. I then question him and ask why only the bottom part since my whole head was rebonded (by him, no less) and he said the ends are usually more porous.

I got a feeling that he is trying to blame the consistency of the colour on my rebonded hair.. but the thing was, I rebonded my hair 1 week ago at this salon and I was told I can colour it 7 days later and yes, I was informed I can only darken my hair but I wasn't told that the colour will come out to be so fucked up!

I don't proclaim myself to be a hair expert so I shall not argue much. Most importantly is how to solve the problem. He proposed a few options to me:

1. Dye the top part darker
2. Bleach the bottom part
3. TRY and wash off the colour of the bottom part

Option 1 is out, as even the top part which appears brown in flashlight is a few shades darker than I initially wanted. Under normal light it looks black and only in strong sunlight or flashlight does it appears to be brown.

Option 2 is way out as the ends of my hair are super dry after the rebonding + colouring and I don't think it can withstand a bleaching session. I'll probably end up with melted hair that snaps everytime I comb it.

So we went with Option 3, which to me is kinda stupid. How do you even wash out a colour in 1 wash? So they tried washing my hair.. but I didn't have high hopes that the colour will even out.. which it didn't. And the person who washed it out for me was Nana, the hairstylist who applied the colour on the ends of my hair..

It's like double whammy. First she was the one who applied the colour and caused the whole problem, then Bryan who is the director whom I paid an extra $50 surcharge in the first place to help me do my hair who should do it 100% the first time but delegated it to Nana who then botched it up and when I go back again for a fix he again delegated it to Nana.

Fucking oxymoronic to the maximum.

I didn't wanna argue and just went along with whatever they say or do.. because the moment he asked Nana to come and see the colour without asking her why or how she did such a lousy job but instead asked her to wash the end I knew the problem will never be fixed and he's just paying me lip service that he will do his best to solve the issue.

In my mind I was telling myself to be calm, polite and just leave and not come back.

Before I left the salon, Bryan advised me to use Johnson & Johnson baby shampoo which has "colour stripping properties due to it's tear free formula". Since I happened to have a small bottle of it at home and tried to wash the ends of my hair with it just now and guess what happened?

My hair ends become like this. A fucked up mess.

Than I suddenly remembered Bryan saying something to me when I went for colouring, like "Why your hair like that? You use baby shampoo ah? Haha!" when he tried to comb away my tangles. During that time I did not use baby shampoo, but it was tangled because it was dry after the rebonding session.. (Their treatment not good enough).

And now he asked me to use baby shampoo to wash my ends and I'm not sure if the colour did come out cos the foam was white, but it became more tangled.. Sigh.

I shall have to live with my horrible hair.. let it rest for a few weeks than go and recolour it.

And now, let me show you a picture of my hair now, after their 'genius' idea of washing out the ends..

I used yellow lines to partition my hair to show you the colour differences.. It's not really jet black but it is black instead of dark brown.

Day 2 // Day 4 after 'professional washing of hair ends'

If you can spot a difference, you must be super good at games like "Find Wally" or "Spot the difference", because no matter how I look at it, it still looks the same. Ugly, inconsistent and messed up.

PEOPLE ACTUALLY THOUGHT I COLOURED MY HAIR MYSELF WITH THOSE CHEAP $9.90 CRAP DYE WHEN I ACTUALLY PAID OVER $180 FOR A DIRECTOR OF A SALON TO DO IT FOR ME! CAN YOU EVEN COMPREHEND WHY I AM SO FUCKING PISSED AND UPSET?

I would not be quite as upset if in fact:

1. It did not cost me $180+
2. I did not pay $50 extra for the DIRECTOR of the salon to do it but he only oversee 50% of the process
3. The "treatment" included in the price is a lame 30second application
4. The colour was not 3 shades darker than what I expected
5. The colour contrast is not that obvious

I am always nice and polite to people working in a hair salon because I don't want to offend someone who is carrying a sharp scissors on them! You never know what they can do to your hair.. So my demanding attitude which I always extend to useless & rude service staff is never shown in a hair salon. Lucky for them, woe for me. So no matter how unhappy I am, all I can do is grin and bare it and find other ways to complain (like in my blog) and find way to fix it (alternative salon).

I have rebonded my hair countless times and have coloured it after rebonding but honestly this experience is considered my No 2 worst. The first few days after rebonding, my hair looks great.. but now after colouring it became ultra ultra horrible.

The honour of No 1 worst hair experience was at Tampines Mall's Jean Yip 4 years ago where they chopped off 4 inches of my hair because they left the chemical in for too long and the ends melted! They even dared to pester me and ask me to sign their stupid package. But at least their rebonding was S$190, which was less than what I paid at Essensuals Bugis -- S$263.43

Seriously, like when I look at the mirror now, there's not much difference than 2 weeks ago before I rebonded my hair.. just a wee bit straighter. Also, now the ends are drier and splitting like mad! When I go to other salon for rebonding, the treatment always involve those O2 machines where they wrap your hair in the mushroom thingy and leave it on for minimum 30minutes! Over here, I had a 30second treatment where the hairstylist Nana apply the so-called treatment than washed it off. I was so confused that I actually asked her why she is blowdrying my hair before treatment than she said she has already applied it while washing my hair than I realized the 30seconds cooling sensation was the "treatment".

As for the colour, I rather have my black roots growing out from my hair than have black hair ends and brown hair on the top which is fucking ridiculous.

Imaging paying almost S$500 to have your hair that looking much worse than before?

I understand that people do make mistakes. Previously in my job at the travel company, I do make mistakes but the important thing is not only to learn from them but to do service recovery and ensure the customers that you acknowledge your mistake and will do anything possible to make it up for them and to ensure they have a positive experience.

I forgave the salon for doing a lousy colour job on my hair and did not post on their wall publicly or demanded for a refund. But their 'service recovery' is simply laughable.. A free hairwash?! Utterly insulting and stupid. I am going to boycott Essensual Bugis for life. No matter what they do or say, I will never be going back and paying good money for lousy services like this.

It is a pity because Bryan seems really friendly and nice and on top of that, strictly no hard push of nonsensical 'packages' like Jean Yip. I regret that the positive relationship with my new found hairstylist had to end like this.

To quote Amanda who commented on my previous entry:

"Look at the number of bloggers the salon sponsored! They overcharge paying customers to fund and sustain their business and the sponsorships!!"

Damn fucking true.

Just do a simple google search on the salon and you may see that it has a lot of fans raving about it.. but look closely and you will realize that 85% of them are paid or offered free services to sing praises of the place.

An update on my hair colour

I went out with Yaya & Smallgirl today (more updates later with pictures) and I asked them to help me see my hair colour and determine if I am being paranoid or is the hair colour really botched up.

Before I share what they said, there is a side by side comparison of my hair before the colour job yesterday morning and a picture of my hair this morning..

BEFORE // AFTER

I did not use flash cos this camera's flash mode really sucks big time.. But in the photo on the right, it appears that the colour is really really dark..

Here are a few more pictures I have taken with the self-shot function..

#1 Without Flash

#2 With Flash

#3 With Flash

#1,2,3 Side by side..

For pictures #2 and #3, as there is flashlight, the brown can be seen.. but under the natural light or sunlight, the brown on the top is uneven and the ends is much darker than my roots, and the contrast is very obvious is picture #3.

Honestly, I am very happy with the Rebonding that Bryan did for me -- also because he was there throughout the whole process even though he had an assistant to help him with my hair. But I really really HATE the colour job, especially since I have taken a picture of the back of my hair and I can see it clearer than peeking backwards towards a mirror.

Yaya saw me first and her first word was "Disconnected". She said I can quote her.. Haha! Well, she helped me see my colour in the sunlight and also in the shade and she said that the colour on the top is nice but uneven and look like highlights but the bottom is too dark and the top and bottom doesn't match, thus the word "Disconnected".

Smallgirl said that I am overcharged cos she paid only S$160 for colour, rebond and cut at a salon and the effects is still quite nice after a few months.. :(

When I came home and take the pictures, I whatsapp them picture #3 and they were horrified to see that the effect is more obvious in pictures than in real life! They said the real life thing was bad enough but it looks worse in the photo!! Sobs.

I am utterly depressed at this point in time.

Now I am not sure what to do.. go back and ask Bryan to redo the colour or forget about it and boycott Essensuals Bugis forever?

NDP 2011 Tickets!

Finally after so many years, I am going watch the National Day Parade on the actual day on 9th August 2011! Woohoo!

Many thanks to Nathaniel who gave us one pair of tickets! He balloted for 4 tickets for actual day and got them! SO FREAKING LUCKY! He even went to queue up and collect the tickets and met us at Orchard just to pass us the tickets... So sweet and kind of him!!!

I asked him why he gave them to me instead of his other friends and he said cos he saw I was lamenting on Facebook that the balloting system sucks and I never get the tickets no matter how many times me and Pipimon try and the first people he thought of was us! :D

And guess what? We still didn't get the tickets this year, but thanks to Nat we are going to watch it on the actual day! WOOHOO! :)

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

Queen Gang's Night Out!

Met up with Yaya, Joyce and Smallgirl (Jasmine Michelle) for a dinner at Nex's Crystal Jade Korean BBQ.. The food is super salty and there's lots of MSG cos we felt really thirsty after the meal..

If you wanna eat the buffet, I recommend the Centrepoint outlet.. Even though they served ala-carte buffet instead, the food is much better and there's a better selection of cooked food.

Selection of the raw meat..

Stuff for the soup

Cooked Food

Desserts

ONE complimentary bowl of ginseng chicken soup

Pipimon

Me!

There's a center partition dividing our tables. Super weird.

Two Jasmines~

Uncle sitting on the floor

Enjoying our frozen yogurt from Sogurt!

Afterwards we went to some ulu place at Punggol to chillax than Joyce went home with her bf and the 4 of us went to KPT Coffeeshop for supper!

Pipimon

Smallgirl & Yaya

Fried Carrot Cake! YUMS!

Fried Oyster Omelette! YUMS!

Chicken Chop! YUMS!

Pipimon's Medical Appointment

Pipimon had a medical check-up today at Tan Tock Seng hospital.. Went for his blood-test in the morning then had to wait 2 hours for the results so we went to Velocity to walk around..

Baskin Robbins is opened!

Must take more pictures! Hahahaha!

I did not buy any cos they don't have my favourite flavours.. Also, I think a fun brand like Baskin Robbins should hire youthful people to sell the ice-cream.. It's not about age, I said youthful, not younger. Even an older person can be more outgoing and exuberant right?

I always feel that the employees are an extension of a brand and it should reflect the brand's image and branding. You wouldn't buy cosmetics from a women with lousy makeup skills, nor will you trust a fat slimming centre consultant right? That's my personal opinion.

Super cute star bench at United Square :)

Most of the shops were closed so we walked over to United Square cos there's a Sogurt there and I only tried the Nex Mall's sogurt without going to other outlets before.. Also read online that different outlets offer different flavours so I am really excited to see if they have any different flavours from the Nex outlet..

We reached at 10.40am and the opening hours is 11am.. so we walked around, going to Cold Storage and came back at 11am but it was still closed! Walked around somemore and came back at 11.10am.. STILL NOT OPENED! I was so pissed that I told him to give up and let's go back to the hospital.. he said to give them some more time and at 11.30am, it finally opened but guess what? The yogurt machines are not ready (washing) and the toppings are all not brought out yet!

I was majorly pissed. Like there's no work ethics at all! We walked in the hot sun from Velocity to United Square (did not use the underpass the first time) and waited for 50minutes in vain! Yes, the first 20mins might not be counted cos it's not their opening time.. but still?!?!?!?!

11th Braces Update

Pipimon suggested dark green & bright green when I asked him what colour I should choose for the powerbands.. but when I was in the consultation room, I was told that there is only had 1 kind of green, so I made a quick decision on the spot by choosing the yellow to match with the green.. and I think the combination is nice! :)

I still have to put in the 2 rubberbands on each side to tighten and pull the teeth straighter. It's quite a hassle when I have to eat cos I have to pull it out than straight after eating I have to put it back.. most of the times, people around me give me weird looks but I have learned to ignore them. Haha!

Here's a comparison of Day 1 compared to today, 9 months later..

Don't you think it it much straighter? :)

jPot & Hangover II

After rebonding my hair earlier today, I went home and nua a bit and napped till 8pm before Pipimon announced that he has a craving for jPot! Bathed and took care not to wet my hair (cannot shampoo for at least 48hours!), and we went to Vivocity for our steamboat dinner.

Had our dinner then went to watch Hangover II!

Pipimon forgot that he watched Part 1 of Hangover with me.. and when I reminded him of the Las Vegas scenes and everything, he has no recollection at all! Omg. So scary can? I know sometimes we forget that we watch a certain movie.. but when we see the same characters or similar scenes we will have some faint memory of the movie, no? Anyway, both of us enjoyed the movie a lot.. Of course Part 1 will always be the nicer than the sequel, but there's plenty of laughs in this installment too. :)

There's a Green Lantern statue at Vivocity's Golden Village, and Pipimon tried to pose like him... T_T"

Another one of him being 'punched' by the Green Lantern.. =.=

I can't wait for Part 2 of Cars!

I used to be so crazy over Part 1 and I have the toys, posters and magnets! HAHAHAHA! It's been almost 5 years and I can't wait!!!!