Salon : Michelle's Hair and Beauty Studio
Location : 148, Potong Pasir Ave 1, #01-41, S(350148)
Tel : 6858 3813 / 9641 0488
Stylist : Michelle
Came across an Techna NCC poster, on ammonia-free hair colouring outside a neighbourhood salon and decided to pop in for the job. Its been a long while since I last visit neighborhood salons and I hesitated for several weeks before deciding on it.
I remembered seeing something similar elsewhere and reckon that it should be cheaper in neighbourhood salons.
Michelle owns and works alone in the salon hence appointments are definitely required. She takes some time to warm up to people and does not chat much initially. After telling her that my last organic hair colour job left my hair too dry, she assures me that Nook, hailing from Italy ( ammonia-free ), is less drying than norm but also more expensive than the conventional hair dye. 90% of her customers use Nook, rather than Techna as Nook colour dyes absorb easily into the hair, as compared to Techna which is organic.
Recalling my last organic hair colouring job, from Organic Hair Professional gives me the creeps and I certainly hope the nightmare won't repeat itself.
The small but neat hair salon has magazines stacked neatly in a shelf where she selects the latest English magazines for me. No hair washing was done prior to colouring. Unlike most stylists, she does not suggest colour for me, but instead ask for my preference - like brown or red, and choose one for me, with suggestion to add in some black to cover my greys as brown may be too light.
She does a very thorough job with the dye but it stings badly. Very badly, as she shrink-wrap my hair for almost 20minutes or so, and left on for another couple of minutes to ensure that the dye is totally absorbed into the hair. The 20minutes wait seems like eternity as my scalps stings. It reminds me of my last non-ammonia hair dye and I wonder why my scalp reacts badly to them. Isn't it suppose to be a healthier alternative, with lesser chemicals?
My scalp is raw and with each stroke during the hair washing left me in pain, probably due to the sensitive scalp. When she realized that my top is wet due to the dripping hair, she is thoughtful enough to blow dry it.
My hair looks shiny, softer and healthier. Beautiful and natural. Funnily, despite seeing that I have curls, she chose to blow them straight, saying blowing dry them in curls requires more effort and requires top-up. Funny analogy.
When I finally did wash my hair 2 days later, my nightmare came true. It was straw-like and in clumps (when wet) and large white flakes appeared in my hair (when dry). This is probably due to the hair dye making my hair too dry and difficult to wash the shampoo out of my straw-like hair state. Or perhaps its due to my sensitive scalp that is flaking. When I use a conditioner, my hair is soft but white flakes continue to haunt me, even after 3 rounds of shampoo-ing on the first day.
My scalp and hair seems to react badly to non-ammonia hair colour and I am at a loss for words. On my path to seeking natural alternatives, I met with more obstacles instead.
The flakes become lesser as days went by and my scalp recovered after a week. While I like that my hair looks much healthier and greys were mainly covered, the stinging scalp and the flaking are not experiences I enjoyed.
Charges : $100
Updated ( 16th Oct 15 ) :
Post was updated with Nook Hair Colour as I realized today that Michelle is using Nook instead of Techna which wasn't displayed anywhere in her salon.
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