I have had bad luck with hair cuts in Singapore. There seem to be 2 main problems.
- Singaporeans have straight hair.
- Women in Singapore wear their hair long.
If I look around a room, I'm usually the only woman with short hair. Even the few women with short hair, tend to have it no shorter than chin length. The stylists are quite concerned when I ask them to go shorter.
No matter how much I explain what my wavy hair will do, they keep cutting my hair as if it's straight. My hair doesn't lie flat, so anywhere a layer is cut, I get a bump in my hair. My hair is also cut in straight lines, that go all wonky the second I walk out the door into Singapore's humidity. I can get it looking great with a blow dryer at home, but it doesn't look like that after 5 minutes outside.
I've tried many different stylists. I've also tried going repeatedly to the few stylists that did an okay job, hoping they'll learn my hair. I've tried expensive places and cheap places. I've tried recommendation from others to no avail.
My hair cuts just go from bad to worse here.
For a long time I've figured I was not going to get a decent haircut until I could leave the country on vacation, and who knows when that will be because of Covid. I was totally despairing, when I saw a Facebook ad for haircuts for curly hair. There is only one stylist in the salon; she has curly hair herself; and sounded like she knew what she was doing based on her website.
Despite it being a taxi ride away, I figured I might as well try Curly Ann at the Adelphi Building.
I didn't go in with a picture or anything. After talking about my hair problems with Curly Ann, I told her to just go ahead and cut it how she thought best. She laughed when I said, she "could not make things worse than they already were".
My hair was washed and then dried, before being cut. They even combed out my hair with a wide tooth comb which is good for curly hair. After my cut, my hair was washed and dried again, so she could finish off the style and make sure it still lay properly after washing. I loved being able to leave the salon without shedding little itchy pieces of hair from my new hair cut.
Curly Ann was happy with my hair. She asked if she could take pictures. She says, most of her clients have long hair, so she doesn't have many examples of short cuts she's done.
I do love it. It's shorter than I would have gone, but I've learned that Singapore stylists tend to cut to a specific style and if you start asking them to deviate in any way it goes poorly. The cut totally suits me and was definitely cut for curly hair. I recognized her using all the cutting techniques my Canadian hairstylists use on me.
My hair looked just as good then next day after my outdoor yoga class. Yoga is really a test for any haircut.
After my hair cut, I decided to go for a little walk down Clark Quay. I was hoping to get a cold drink on a hot patio overlooking the river. I was shocked to find the place deserted at 4 pm on a Friday Afternoon. It was patio after patio with no one. I imagine things will pick up with the dinner crowd around 7 pm there, but with no tourists in Singapore this strip was completely deserted.
I eventually settled on a patio that didn't have a closed sign. I headed into the indoor restaurant and asked if I could sit outside. After I had my temperature taken and signed in for contract tracing, then sent me outside to pick any table I liked.
I sipped a Lychee Margarita while watching bumboat cruises depart on the river. I think I drummed up some business for the restaurant by sitting outside. Two other tables had filled before I left, but the neighbouring restaurants were still empty.
On the way out I passed the same fountain that the girls had played in when we first moved to Singapore and were still staying in a hotel near Clarke Quay. Now there's a big sign saying, "Strictly No Activities within the Fountain."
That's Covid for you. It's still a lovely fountain, but not nearly as cheerful as seeing people skip laughingly through it.
