Four Burning Questions for Two Hairstylists from ICON by Hair Visual

They are simply a (hair)cut above the rest.

Hairstyling’s no easy job for the faint of heart, and I sincerely – sincerely – respect hairstylists because how well a haircut goes affects that person’s life trajectory for the next six months or year until the next haircut.

Yes, six months or a year, because even though my colleagues like to joke about how I’m a man, I’m still a woman who likes to grow out her hair. I have friends who need to cut their hair once a month cause it grows that quickly.

Man! It feels great to be a woman.

So, with that great respect for hairstylists in mind, I pitched four burning questions that I had at two hairstylists from ICON by Hair Visual to try and understand what it felt like to be in their shoes. Introducing Desmond, who’s been a hairstylist for the past eight years, and Irene, who’s been a hairstylist for three.

Let’s go.

Q1: What’s your favourite/least favourite hairstyle to cut?

Irene: There isn’t a particular favourite hairstyle that I like to cut, nor one that I dislike. I just cut my customers’ hair based on their needs to the best of my professional abilities.

Desmond: Same, to be honest. At the end of the day, as long as the hairstyle fits the customer and they’re satisfied, I’m happy.

Q2: What do customers ask for that makes you want to vomit blood?

Irene: Generally, nothing phases me. (Irene, is that a challenge? I live for challenges, y’know.) I’ll just answer their questions patiently.

Desmond: Ah, when customers themselves don’t know what hairstyle they want.

Q3: What’s the longest session that you did someone’s hair for?

Irene: Five hours.

Desmond: …Six.

I can’t imagine standing up for even thirty minutes; imagine how tiring it must be to keep your arms raised while you work on someone’s hair for that long. Respect +10.

Q4: Any other memorable incidents that you’d like to share?

Irene: Nothing much. It’s been a fun learning and growing experience over my three years of hairstyling.

Desmond: Hm… None for me either. I’ll continue learning and improving as I progress in my hairstyling career.

ICON by Hair Visual: 1-for-1 Haircut at S$40

From now till 9th December 2023, ICON by Hair Visual is offering a 1-for-1 haircut and wash at only S$40. Their usual price for a haircut and wash is S$160, so that means a 75% discount, exclusively for Purple Rewards users.

Yups, you heard that right. S$40 for two people to cut and wash their hair. 75% discount.

If you’re going – make sure to call ahead and book an appointment. Bring your kids, bring your partner, we’re getting fancy shmancy new hairstyles. To redeem this deal, all you need to do is download Purple Rewards on iOS or Android.

Also, ICON recently moved to a new location at 46 Peck Seah Street, Singapore 079316. Please make sure that you are going to their new location.

And that’s all I have for you today. Have a great week ahead!

Bonus: A Fun Little Horror Hair Story for You < 3

So. I’m pretty sure that all of us (and by all of us, I mean all MZ generation Singaporeans) have had the joy of going through the helmet haircut when young (not even Clement was spared, that loser, and he’s a boomer). Not even kidding. I have tons of old photos of my siblings and I and we’re all sporting firm, black, standard-issue Poh hair helmets.

I thought that was horrible enough, until the fateful day of 16th June 2020. Spurred by the COVID-19 lockdown heebies jeebies, I decided to try out the Hime haircut. I can’t put pictures of it here because copyright, so please google it.

I thought I’d end up looking like Momo from Twice. I was so incredibly wrong. After that haircut, whatever aspirations I had to try out trendy hairstyles dissipated into smoke. Imagine the helmet hair from young, but this time, only halfway to slightly behind my ears. The rest of my hair was long.

Showing y’all photos would probably be faster, but I also have some measure of shame so I won’t be uploading the hair crime here.

Anyways, I’ve had both long hair (think butt-brushingly long) and short hair (got a shock when the nice man whipped out a shaver to get at the nape of my neck – my hair was around cheek-length at some point in time) before and there’s no consensus amongst people I know because I’ve got extremely varying answers on which I suit better.

But I’ve always had an extremely soft spot for long-haired Hsiao Ying, so I took great care of and pride in my hair and keeping it long.

So, when my hard work was ruined and I had half of my hair mismatched from the rest, I called my brother in tears and whined about my hair. He brought me to the hairstylist that’s been cutting my siblings’ hair since secondary school (all the way up till now, even) when they decided they had enough of looking like dweebs and wanted to look cool.

Joke is on them; they still look like dweebs. Nothing can be done about their faces though, so there’s that.

Anyways the conclusion to the story is that I lived with bangs for two years to grow out my hair again, which is a CRIME in of itself because I swore off bangs permanently after a slanted-bang phase in secondary school. Seriously. I blame SHINee.

My hair’s back to normal now though. But. Never again. I’ll never try to look trendy ever again. Gonna stick with the classics right here.

Wow - I’m really ruining my own image on Megazine over here. But then again, what image did I even have to start with. BRB, gonna imitate an ostrich and bury my head in sand for a while.