start the new year with a bang ...

... or in my case, BANGS!

{so yes, i'm making a weird face in the pic. please ignore that!}

maybe it was cause the weather suddenly turned cool.

or maybe it was cause i was hating my hair with each passing day and regretting the trip i made all the may to this small salon in manila thinking i got a great deal on hair rebonding when in fact (1) it was expensive and (2) it ruined my hair.

maybe it was cause i was embarrassed when the girl who colored my hair struggled like crazy combing my hair after washing it ... yeah, it was that damaged.

whatever the reason, last friday, i asked M (my unofficial photographer and my new hair's #1 fan) to go with me to Shine Girls.

now, Shine Girls sort of has a cult following among the korean hairstyling fanatics. and the stylist, jina, almost didn't cut my hair cause i didn't make an appointment prior to going there. but i guess she took one look at the sad state of my hair and decided that if someone needed her magic, it was most definitely me.

since there was most definitely a communication issue (apparently, the only english she trusted was the english of one of her helpers there), my instructions were simple: i don't care what you do to my hair, as long as you take away the damaged portions. 

and oh, i wanted bangs.

she did warn me that my hair was going to end up short and that bangs would required blow-drying in the morning but i threw all caution to the wind. after all, what have i got to lose at this point?

so she cut. and cut. and cut. and cut some more. there was lifting and texturizing and other stuff i couldn't begin to understand. what there wasn't any of was talking. so while i was glad for the language barrier (at least no chit chat) i was afraid of the outcome.

for a while, i was, cause it seemed like my hair was going to come out all kpop-like. then she worked her wonders with a straightening iron, and in a matter of minutes, she made my hair pretty.

i mean, look at that detail!

{screen capture from @dred_fabian's instagram feed}

needless to say, for a P400 haircut, i was one happy, if not overjoyed, customer!

proof here:

{yep, more pics, and all from my official photographer!}

is it shorter? yup, but on bad hair days (translation: when i don't have the energy/patience to fix it) i can put it up on a ponytail still and look decent.

it it difficult to maintain? nope, not at all. i won't lie and say it's wash and wear cause it requires the "making" of a couple of curls with a straightening iron to bring out the nice layers. but, doing all that is super quick (less than ten minutes) with my favorite revlon straightener. easy peasy.

the biggest plus of all though is that the damaged/easily tangled/dead portions are all gone, and my hair seems  much, much healthier. and if only for that, i am so glad for this impulse trip to get my hair cut.

(and if you can't see it, well, look real closely cause i do indeed have bangs ☺)