DAMN! Honestly, I'm just bitter that I'm not the first person to review this place. Aside from that:
This is my absolute favorite Asian hair salon in Seattle, with Ben's Hair in Bellevue as a close second. I was first introduced to this place from my friend who comes here religiously. One moment in a spur of boredom, we decided to get our hair cut, and thank the gods that I did or else I would have never discovered this place.
Patrick, the main hair stylist and owner, took great precision and care with my hair even when I was just coming in for a trim. It took about 45 minutes while he meticulously razored, trimmed, blowdry'd, and flat-ironed my hair. I had never experienced such a thing in my life haha. I felt so pampered and cared for.
The end result? An awesome Hong Kong influenced style that looked high-end but cost only $25. This is way below what any other hair salon specializing in Asian hair charges.
Suffice it to say, this place doesn't look glamorous at all. The products used aren't the most expensive, the language barrier might turn you off, and sometimes you might not even get your hair washed -- let alone conditioned! But all of these things can't detract from the quality of the cut and the care Patrick takes into each and every cut he gives.
I will keep coming back to this place unless I am in the mood to rock a Japanese style, or I am currently in Vancouver. I absolutely praise this salon.
Getting my hair cut here took pretty near forever. The only time I've had a haircut take longer was once in Shanghai when the water supply gave out when me and my friend had our heads in mid-shampoo, and the staff had to ride us on the backs of their bicycles around the corner to a sister shop to finish the process.
But I'm only semi-employed anyway. I have time to spend. It was amusing to listen to the variety of languages being spoken in the shop, and try to figure out what people were saying and where they were from. The haircutter (I think his name is Patrick) for reasons I can only guess at decided when he first saw me (he was about to get into the elevator, but he told me to have a seat and he'd be back) that I was best addressed in Mandarin, which practice he maintained for the whole long duration of my presence in the shop, even after it became obvious that if you want me to understand something you say in Mandarin you have to say it at least three times. But there was another customer he thought it best to address in English, and another he used Cantonese for, and he seemed to be talking to the Girl Assistant in a mix of Vietnamese (maybe?) and English so odd that I couldn't even discern the boundaries between one and the other.
I was also grateful that Patrick had his own ideas about what my hair should look like, and he didn't expect me to articulate any. I have trouble saying what my hair should be like in my native language; being addressed in some other language absolves me of all terminological responsibility. It was almost as good as the time I got my hair cut in Paris.
And he did know what to do with my hair: razor the hell out of it. "You have a lot of hair," he said. But by the time he'd finished trimming here and trimming there, sauntering back and forth across the shop putting things back in their places, trimming a bit more, answering his cell phone, trimming some more, turning on the blow dryer, turning it off again, snipping a bit with the thinning scissors, and telling the Girl Assistant all about how his plans to go back to Vietnam and open a shop there had somehow metamorphosed into renting the space across the hall, where he'll be able to give his customers a big-screen TV and internet service, my hair was not a whole lot shorter than it had been before, but about a third the volume.
based on 2 reviews
2 Comments
DAMN! Honestly, I'm just bitter that I'm not the first person to review this place. Aside from that:
This is my absolute favorite Asian hair salon in Seattle, with Ben's Hair in Bellevue as a close second. I was first introduced to this place from my friend who comes here religiously. One moment in a spur of boredom, we decided to get our hair cut, and thank the gods that I did or else I would have never discovered this place.
Patrick, the main hair stylist and owner, took great precision and care with my hair even when I was just coming in for a trim. It took about 45 minutes while he meticulously razored, trimmed, blowdry'd, and flat-ironed my hair. I had never experienced such a thing in my life haha. I felt so pampered and cared for.
The end result? An awesome Hong Kong influenced style that looked high-end but cost only $25. This is way below what any other hair salon specializing in Asian hair charges.
Suffice it to say, this place doesn't look glamorous at all. The products used aren't the most expensive, the language barrier might turn you off, and sometimes you might not even get your hair washed -- let alone conditioned! But all of these things can't detract from the quality of the cut and the care Patrick takes into each and every cut he gives.
I will keep coming back to this place unless I am in the mood to rock a Japanese style, or I am currently in Vancouver. I absolutely praise this salon.
Getting my hair cut here took pretty near forever. The only time I've had a haircut take longer was once in Shanghai when the water supply gave out when me and my friend had our heads in mid-shampoo, and the staff had to ride us on the backs of their bicycles around the corner to a sister shop to finish the process.
But I'm only semi-employed anyway. I have time to spend. It was amusing to listen to the variety of languages being spoken in the shop, and try to figure out what people were saying and where they were from. The haircutter (I think his name is Patrick) for reasons I can only guess at decided when he first saw me (he was about to get into the elevator, but he told me to have a seat and he'd be back) that I was best addressed in Mandarin, which practice he maintained for the whole long duration of my presence in the shop, even after it became obvious that if you want me to understand something you say in Mandarin you have to say it at least three times. But there was another customer he thought it best to address in English, and another he used Cantonese for, and he seemed to be talking to the Girl Assistant in a mix of Vietnamese (maybe?) and English so odd that I couldn't even discern the boundaries between one and the other.
I was also grateful that Patrick had his own ideas about what my hair should look like, and he didn't expect me to articulate any. I have trouble saying what my hair should be like in my native language; being addressed in some other language absolves me of all terminological responsibility. It was almost as good as the time I got my hair cut in Paris.
And he did know what to do with my hair: razor the hell out of it. "You have a lot of hair," he said. But by the time he'd finished trimming here and trimming there, sauntering back and forth across the shop putting things back in their places, trimming a bit more, answering his cell phone, trimming some more, turning on the blow dryer, turning it off again, snipping a bit with the thinning scissors, and telling the Girl Assistant all about how his plans to go back to Vietnam and open a shop there had somehow metamorphosed into renting the space across the hall, where he'll be able to give his customers a big-screen TV and internet service, my hair was not a whole lot shorter than it had been before, but about a third the volume.
Which was exactly what it needed.