hairdo

Check out my newly damaged hair!

- Sheylara 11 Comments

Last week, I went to the hair salon. I told my stylist I wanted to re-colour my hair and maybe perm it because I was tired of spending 30 minutes with the curling tong every day.

Sheylara

I asked for some hair magazines so I could choose something I liked. But my stylist said, “No need! I already know what I’m going to do for you.”

O_o

I decided to let him. I knew I was going to have a hard time choosing if it were up to me, anyway.

I kind of regretted it because I ended up spending five hours in the salon. He gave me the whole works — cut, colour, perm, treatment and countless washes.

If you’d followed my Twitter or read my Plurks, you would have witnessed my ordeal real-time.

Sheylara at the salon

Sheylara at the salon

Sheylara at the salon

Sheylara at the salon

It was 8:30 pm by the time I was done. I wasn’t ecstatic with the result. I thought my face looked fatter and older with my newly poofed-up hair.

Sheylara

Sheylara

Well, it’s been five days now and the curls have tamed a bit, so I’m a little happier with it. And, of course, I’m very happy with the fact that my hair is not silky smooth anymore.

Contrary to popular opinion, silky smooth hair is NOT GOOD. It’s limp and flat and slippery and a horror to style.

Once, I had to do a waking up scene and my director was horrified that he couldn’t get my hair to mess up so that I looked like I had just gotten out of bed. It just refused to be anything but straight and limp.

So I love my newly damaged hair! Now I can mess it up so easily! And I can twirl it with my fingers and it will actually remain twirled when I let go!!

Sheylara

Well, the twirls will undo a little very slowly throughout the day, but I get enough hours of having cute hair before I have to twirl it again with my fingers.

You could never do that with silky smooth hair!

My stylist advised me not to blow-dry after washing. He said to just twirl the two sides quickly and then leave it to air dry.

Sheylara

Wet look!

Sheylara

I thought that was great news because it would save me 15 minutes of blow drying every day. But then I realised some parts become frizzy when left to air dry, which I don’t like, so now I have to blow dry my hair very carefully, trying not to disturb the curls too much.

Which takes more time to blow dry than my straight hair did.

O_o

Hair is so troublesome!!

Nevertheless, I’m quite pleased with the change, even though I look like a monster when I get out of bed now.

I don’t really like the colour, though. I’d prefer something more cocoa-brown than orange-brown. But my stylist says this is the latest trendy colour. He also says light colours are passe now, so it’s best to get something darker brown.

Sheylara

Sheylara

This is with professional film-set lighting. It looks purplish! Oh, well, anything is better than black!

Sheylara

I wish he didn’t cut my fringe short, though. Now it’s a bitch to manage. Grrr!

After so many years… my new look

- Sheylara 25 Comments

New hairdo!!

I’ve resisted doing a dye job for years because I really hate going to the hair salon. It’s boring sitting there for hours.

Hated, anyway.

Now that I have Minou and Wang Wang to accompany me, I don’t mind going every few months to retouch and trim. (I used to visit the salon only once every two years or so.)

So, I decided to take the plunge and colour my hair!

I went with a very safe colour to start off.

Sheylara

I know, I know. You can hardly tell the difference from black. But we need to take baby steps. I think the Goonfather might faint if I step out of the salon with pink hair.

So, maybe I’ll kind of do it progressively.

Can someone good with photoshop pinkify my hair to show me how I’ll look?

Sheylara

The curls aren’t permanent; they were made with curling tongs. My stylist was nice enough to spend extra time curling my hair just for the heck of it.

I might go for permanent ones next time cos I like how it turned out. But Wang Wang said my hair will be horribly damaged, so I can’t decide now.

Sheylara

I didn’t think I could ever recreate this look on my own (I’ve never used curling tongs myself before!) so I took lots of photos.

But my stupid camera auto-adjusted the lighting in this following photo so that I look like a corpse.

Sheylara

With Minou and Wang Wang:

Three

Two

Maybe, maybe, next time, I’ll really go for pink.

Why I have Cleopatra hair

- Sheylara 16 Comments

I will tell you why.

But, first, allow me to say a few words in my defence.

  1. Stop hating my Cleopatra/Emily the Strange/China doll hairstyle. I can’t help my hair being this way.
  2. Stop envying my naturally straight, silky, never-rebonded hair. Yes, it sounds like a shampoo ad dream but it’s really nothing but trouble.

Let me illustrate.

I was going for an audition the other day. It was for a young mother role, so I decided to gel my hair back in order to look older.

First, I tied it back in a low ponytail. Then, I brushed my Cleopatra fringe to the side with the help of hair wax. Once I’ve got it into satisfactory shape, I hairsprayed liberally all over to set it in place.

I was pleased that I was able to recreate my Kao Magiclean look.

All set, I left for my audition.

Walked to the MRT station and took the MRT to Chinatown where my audition was held.

When I reached Chinatown MRT station, I went to the ladies to freshen up and I saw that my hair had become thus:

Went for the audition, nevertheless.

Did the audition and went in search of another toilet to recover from post-audition nerves.

Alas, I saw that I was looking more and more dishevelled. Where did all the hair wax and hairspray go?

By now frustrated by my rubbish hair and also by the audition (I either get post-audition jitters or post-audition blues. This time, it was post-audition blues), I went straight home.

Another trip on the MRT and a short walk home.

By the time I reached home, my hair had gone back to almost square one.

SO YOU SEE! I HAVE TRIED BUT MY HAIR JUST AIN’T CO-OPERATING!!!

Compare again the first and last pictures. And this is like less than two hours apart. And this is also with tons of extra strength hair wax and hairspray to supposedly hold it in place.

In the past when I needed to keep my hair up, I would bring my hair wax and hairspray out with me. When that happens, you’ll see me going to the ladies every half an hour to spray my hair back to where I want it to be, because no matter how many times I spray, it just keeps falling down again.

By the end of the day, I am a walking can of hairspray and I still look like a China doll.

It was similarly frustrating when I had a long fringe.

It was forever covering my face, which was very, very annoying. And I realised one day that I had developed a very ugly head swing to shake the hair off my face.

I saw myself do it on TV too many times to count.

Cameramen hated my long fringe because they could never see my face when shooting profile angles. And they were always asking me to stick all the hair behind my ears, which just makes my whole hair look flat.

Yes, my long fringe looks really nice on photos. But those are still photos and my hair can be manipulated for split seconds, long enough to allow a nice picture to be taken.

But in real life and on TV, the long fringe is just too much trouble.

I have tried dyeing my entire head of hair. I thought if I damaged my hair, it wouldn’t fall so straight anymore.

Didn’t work. My hair got damaged but it was still as straight as ever.

I have tried perming it but the fringe still falls into the front of my face.

So, to beat all the frustration, I cut my fringe short.

Now, I can concentrate on acting without having to worry about my ugly head swing or stress about my hair covering my face.

In fact, I think my acting has improved since I cut my hair.

Unfortunately, I can’t do anything about the Cleopatra look. I have tried to wear it to the side as you can see, but it just keeps wanting to be straight.

What can I do?

Even if I look uglier with this hairstyle, I’m keeping it because it’s less frustrating and it makes me a better actress.

Seriously!