C Michael London Avenue K

After the marathon hair session with founder of C Michael London, Mr Michael Cheow

For the past few years and more, I’ve known that my hair is seriously in need of resuscitation and because I put my hair through so many chemical processes, colouring with bleaching and rebonding, it was looking more like straw than hair. I could tell just by touching my hair that it was 110% unhealthy which is why I attended the recent C Michael London workshop at Avenue K. I needed all the professional hair advice I could get and who better to get it from than Mr Michael Cheow, founder of C Michael London as he has over 40 years of experience in the industry. Most hair stylists I know have about 20 years experience at most.

The recent hair workshop gave me a lot of information but I really wanted to know more, how in the world was I going to improve my hair condition and was it even possible? I have used so many different hair products, all sorts of shampoos, conditioners, masks and treatments to no avail. My hair remained dry and tough, it looked like straw, it felt like straw. I might as well call it straw as my hair in no way resembled hair. Besides, I wasn’t that fond of my latest colour, a weird shade of red/copper which I felt had been forced upon me by one of the girls at my regular salon.

Mr Michael holding up a bunch of my straw hair

My appointment at C Michael London Avenue K was at 1pm last Friday and Mr Michael himself had graciously offered to be my stylist even though he has a very capable and experienced Senior Stylist there, CS. I felt very flattered and couldn’t believe that Mr Michael would take time off his extremely busy schedule to style my hair.

Michael and CS examined my hair and were horrified by what they saw. I don’t blame them. It must look even worse from behind! Yes, Michael held a bunch of my hair and declared it the worst case he had ever seen in his entire esteemed career and I guess that is saying a lot since he has probably seen thousands of clients’ over 40+ years. I was mortified, I felt like running out of the salon because I knew the dire state of my hair. I didn’t even know if Michael would be able to save it but I was in good hands as Michael has the know-how and products which he developed himself to make my hair look presentable again but it would take the next 6 hours. Patience is the keyword here and “care and concern” is C Michael’s mantra. There’s no such thing as a rush job here.

During the first shampoo, a treatment was applied to my hair to remove some of the red colour. The shampoo smelled so good. It’s only for in-salon use. Even without conditioner, my hair felt soft and smooth. There was less red in my hair after the shampoo had been rinsed off and then the magic began as Michael sculpted my hair like I have never seen any hair stylist sculpt hair before. It took an hour and 45 minutes for this initial cut as Michael wanted to remove as much of my damaged and can’t-be-rescued hair as possible which is to say, a lot.

Looking at how Michael styled and cut, I felt like he was the Master Oogway (Kung Fu Panda) of the hair styling world. Most salons I go to would just cut away my dead ends and even though there’d be some restyling, most of the damaged hair remained and eventually, it would look straw-like again but I had a feeling Michael wouldn’t be like the average stylist I encountered before. Here was a true Master of the hair styling world. If there was a Black Belt for this industry, Michael earned his a long time ago. If I had to have very short hair, then I’d only want one person to do it, Michael of C Michael London. In him I could trust.

Already started to look much neater and less frizzy after the initial cut/styling. It was on to pre-lightening as I was to get an ash green shade (yay!). This pre-lightening would remove all the red pigments. I never ever want to have my hair dyed red again and I mean NEVER. The pre-lightening process took about 45 minutes and the stylists took turns to check on the progress. I noticed that there are no shampoo boys or girls as such in this salon as ALL of the staff are skilled in cutting hair, colouring and everything else. They are well trained here, they know their stuff and are efficient in getting things done. I am not saying this just because I had my nice hair makeover here, this is all from my observations. After all, if you spent 6 hours in a salon, you would notice a lot of things, good or bad.

Unlike the other salons I have been to recently which apply one layer of colour and that’s it. my ash green shade was applied again and again. I had lost count of how many times they applied this shade. I was highly anticipating the outcome. This would probably be the nicest colour on my hair I’d ever seen.

The colour was left on my hair for almost and hour. After it had been rinsed off, I was given a restructuring treatment. As Michael put it, whatever nutrients have been removed from hair as a result of chemical processes such as bleaching, they advocate putting nutrients back into hair so that hair always remains healthy. Wise advice indeed.

This was an experience which went beyond my expectations. I never thought that I would sport a look like this. This is one short hair style I could only dream of before and never for one second before last Friday did I ever imagine I would have. I think it’s genius, it’s a style that makes me feel more confident and better about myself. When my hair was looking dry and sad, I didn’t feel like taking selfies but in the past few days, I feel like taking a lot of selfies! When your hair looks good, it’s like a morale booster.