Powderpuff Mae

Digital Perms are the in thing now. The last time I had a perm was 9 years ago. For the past few months I've been toying with the idea of having a perm. The salons at my housing area had been actively advertising their packages - a perm (digital or rebonding), cut, colour and treatment, all for less than RM300 regardless of hair length.

I've been doing my own research on which perm suits my face best. Initially I was going to go for large ceramic curls, and in preparation I kept my hair really long. After much thinking I decided against it as it may add at least 5 years to my looks and it would take too much of my time to maintain those curls. I then opted for rebonding but not the ones that leave the hair looking flat, apparently some stylists are able to make the hair look naturally straight!

I was about to make an appointment with my stylist to rebond my hair when I realised something terribly wrong with my hair the night before. My hair was dropping. I was losing hair. When I combed through my hair with my fingers, my heart almost stopped beating when I saw the large quantity of hair that remained on my fingers. I have never seen so much hair shed, it was as though my husband conspired with my new, young and youthful maid to finish me off with arsenic.

The next day I made an appointment with Peek-a-boo to have a hair cut. I decided to chop off at least 4 inches and to lay off any plans that involve chemicals on the head. Get a recommendation for a good shampoo that prevents hair loss and get whatever treatment necessary.

I left work early to save myself from balding. But the Friday jam just wouldn't allow me to get to my planned destination, so I detoured to Thomas & Guys in SS2. I walked into an empty salon with no one attending to me. 4 out of 5 people in that salon were busy being entertained by the computer for reasons only God knows. I was led to Joe a very Ah Beng looking stylist. I was starting to worry. I felt like running out of that place as it was so bare and empty with no decent looking stylists around. But I was desperate, so I regained my composure and told Joe exactly what I wanted. I wanted 4 inches off and I wanted the ends to be layered as I wanted my hair to have some body.

He summoned the shampoo boy and it was the worst shampooing that I ever had. I had shampoo splashed across my face and there wasn't any umph in his washing or massaging. Hated it. If he were a student there, I would have failed him immediately.

All in all Joe did a good job despite him looking like a DVD peddler (the kind that kept only the nails on the pinky long). I told him about my hair dropping problem and apparently my hair didn't drop at all when he was cutting or blowing it. Sigh. Just like taking a pregnancy test only to have your menstruation come the next day. Anyway he recommended Schwarzkopf's Bonacure Hairtherapy Deep Cleansing Expert and Smooth Control Conditioner specially for scalp treatment. Both the items costs RM45 each but there was an offer and I got the 2 items for only RM68.



I tried the scalp treatment set yesterday. I did notice that my hair dropped just a little and the smell was awesome, a very refreshing smell. But more importantly, no more hair dropping problems and I am pleased with my cut.

I knew an English couple, Sarah and Robert, who were seconded to Malaysia for 2 years. Their daughter, Charlotte was 5 and took a school bus to kindi. Sarah found Malaysians to be extremely polite people, they often refer to anyone and everyone as uncles or aunties. They found it even more amusing that Charlotte had picked up that habit from her friends. Even if she didn't know the name of the aunty or uncle, it didn't matter, every uncle and aunty had a special name. Thus the bus driver was officially named "uncle bus" by Charlotte and her friends. We had a good laugh, but as I recalled back, all the 4 designated school bus drivers who ferried me and my siblings throughout our 12 years of schooling were either called uncle bus or aunty bus.

Parents at Jesse's kindi had to pick their kids up in an orderly manner. We had to queue up outside the kindi. Everyday when I wait for Jesse in the queue I meet two aunties who were the designated drivers for some of the children at the kindi. The first aunty drove a Toyota Unser and she had 16 kids under her care. Imagine all 16 kids in a van. It was really amusing watching the kids get in. They just keep hopping into the van of unlimited space which reminded me of a tv commercial for Toyota Unser sometime ago where they showed the "forty vertically challenged thieves" getting into the unser in a similar manner as the kids. Indeed the Unser is great for space.

Both the aunty unser and friend had brownish yellow hair. They have kept up with the trend of having their hair coloured and bleached. Similarly, some decades ago, they must have kept up with the trend then and had their brows and eyeliner tattooed black and that event must have slipped their minds when they coloured their hair recently. The tattooing must have happened some decades ago. Today they have grayish black eyebrows and eyeliner (the black must have faded of) with light brown hair. Not good. It was quite excruciating looking at the pair of aunties everyday under the hot sun. Somehow under the bright natural sunlight, every colour and flaw seemed accentuated.

According to a professional makeup artist, she pointed out that the colour of the brows had to match the colour of the hair. As such black hair, darker or black brows; brown hair, brownish brows. I never saw the importance of such colour coordination until I saw how ghastly aunty unser and friend looked in their trendy new hair colour.

Chinese New Year is around the corner and I know many of my Cantonese (Canto) speaking friends who are itching to do something new and drastic to the hair. Just yesterday two of my canto friends, with great enthusiasm and in anticipation of the New Year coloured their hair brownish yellow, it did look very stark with their black brows. SO do be careful if you intend to colour your hair for the New Year, choose wisely.