Noel <3 Via

Couple of weeks ago I was in a bit of a slump, thought a new haircut would help lift the blues. As my friend G put it, invite some change in. So I marched myself into Essensuals Toni & Guy at Trinoma.

Intrigued by Phoebe’s post when she wrote about her positive experience at the Crowne Plaza branch, I had been wanting to visit the place myself but found it a bit out of the way. Since they opened a Trinoma branch, I decided to check it out one weekend. The place was packed! The next appointment was in a hour’s time so I booked it right away. I was surprised to see so many many people in a salon that isn’t cheap.

before my treatment and cut

I didn’t know which stylist to pick and ended with Idyll. I explained that I wanted something a little different that would bring out my natural curls, but I was afraid of texturizing as it really gave me bad split ends before and irritated my face as a result. I liked that she gave her recommendation right away about my needing a treatment as my hair was very dry and my scalp was quite irritated. But what I liked even better was the massage I got while I was asked to wait for my stylist to get to me. Once she did though, and made her recommendations, she had someone give me a quotation first as to what the treatment and cut would cost. A cut with Idyll costs PhP 650.00 and the treatment she suggested for hair and scalp was this sea salt treatment from Japan called Mucarina. This came out to almost 3k because of my long hair, but they gave me a good discount which cost about PhP 2,200.00 - PhP 2,400.00.

The treatment itself felt cold and soothing on my scalp which is prone to irritation. Idyll said this is aggravated by stress. I was given another very relaxing massage to help my hair absorb the Mucarina. To seal it in more, it was steamed directly using this contraption. Of course I was told that I would need more than one treatment to bring my hair’s original lustre and softness back.

steamer

I felt like I was in a carwash. Hahaha! Then it was time for my cut. To my dismay, Idyll decided she was going to texturize my hair after all, even if I had already explained what had happened before. She reasoned that the stylist probably didn’t know what he/she was doing. I’m still on the fence about my new haircut and may go back for another treatment, but have to accept that my hair can’t really swing high layers and has to be cut more or less the same way by my usual stylists at Basement. For maintenance I was told to blow dry only the bangs (a sideswept fringe) which I attempted to do but failed miserably. It felt like another episode out of Betty&Veronica comics where Betty tries to replicate a fab new do on her own but just gets frustrated.

what do you think of my new haircut? yay or nay?

Toni & Guy is located at:
3/L Trinoma North Avenue Corner Edsa Quezon City Metro Manila
Phone: +63(2)9007168