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 ☺)

me and my new hair

i'm the girl who refuses to spend a lot on her hair.  that was, until last tuesday.

i can blame it on impulse, claim temporary insanity, or the fact that i was wholly dependent on a hair tie to keep me from looking like a crazy woman at work.  whatever the cause, right after a quick lunch at the canteen, i told my officemates that i wanted to go park jun and get a haircut.

so someone called to check if the creative director was there (she came highly recommended on a spot.ph article which claimed that she's perfect for those with thick, frizzy hair) and when i was penciled in at 12, we all trooped to glorietta and an hour later (she was quick!), i came out with lovely, lovely hair.

now, if you have the same hair texture that i do, you do know that lovely, lovely hair from the parlor translates into unmitigated disaster after the first shampoo.  and true enough, my nice soft layers turned into crazy woman hair after i allowed it to air dry yesterday.  i was a bit disappointed -- did the writer who did the review not promise that this woman, who charges what it would cost me to eat a buffet lunch at spiral (without a voucher!), is amazing when it comes to my kind of hair???

but then (1) my hair really is extremely damaged and (2) she did tell me i'd need a major treatment + grow my hair so she could cut off the damaged area and (3) i'd need a volume rebond later on to tame my wild tresses.  so today, i air dried my hair and then did what any girl wanting to make the most out of her expensive haircut would do: spent time styling it.  my weapon of choice? my revlon hair iron.

and what do you know. in less than fifteen minutes (it was dry already so all i had to do was iron), i had lovely, lovely hair once more.  sure, it wasn't wash and wear like i wanted, but at the end of the day, i was able to sort of recreate the "look" the stylist did for me. i got the nice layers framing my face, and the shape was a nice long bob, and while it wasn't as sleek as the blow-dried version, my version still looked like i paid good money to look cute. i felt the same way as i did when i stepped out of the salon.  now THAT, at least in my experience, is rare.

so thanks, Maiya for making my hair pretty.  i *might* just make it back to you salon chair in the future.

bagong buhay

gosh ... ang haba ng hair ko diyan. literally.

dalawang linggo na ang nakakalipas mula nang putulin ko ang buhok ko. ilang linggo na lang, feeling ko, baka pwede ko na muli siya itali. iniisip ko din na siguro, bago ikasal yung kaibigan ko sa 15 december, hindi na rin siya masyado fluffy. normal fluffy na lang siya. at saka siguro, pagdating ng pasko, sanay na ang madlang people na makita akong maikli ang buhok.

parang weird yung pakiramdam ko talaga sa short hair ko. nakakatuwa na madaming natuwa sa kanya ... madaming nagsasabing mukha akong bata (dahil ba kamukha ko na si dora the explorer), madaming nagsasabing bagay siya, at madaming na-i-impress na naipaputol ko yung ganung kahabang buhok.

pero inasmuch na madaming natutuwa, madami ding nagulat, nanghinayang, at nagpahiwatig ng bewilderment kung paano ko nagawa ito sa sarili ko.

oo nga naman, siopao na nga, lalo pang pinagmukhang siopao ang sarili.

then again, madaling sabihin sa sarili, hoy lola, tutubo din yan. at saka madali ding isiping wala akong choice nung mga pahahong iyon.

pero, gosh, pag nakikita ko yung dati kong buhok, at maayos siyang tingnan sa picture, napapaisip na din ako, bakit ko ba siya ginupit.