I had a pretty dramatic hairstyle change recently: After years of sporting shoulder to mid waist-length hair, I had it cropped down to a pixie. And, like Audrey Hepburn in “Roman Holiday”, I had to fight with my hair stylist to get it, with her protesting that there was no way a pixie would look flattering on a. my wavy hair and b. my body type.
“Hair is everything,” Phoebe Waller-Bridge says in “Fleabag,” storming into a salon after her character’s sister gets a disastrous (and manic-induced) haircut that made her “look like a pencil.” A good stylist makes all the difference, which is why we’ve listed down the salons you should check out when you need a good primping. (If you’re looking for barbershops to get more typically masculine dos, check out these lists instead.)
Leslie Ferrer Espinosa
Espinosa has become somewhat of a cult favorite among the curly headed crew in Manila, and with good reason. The hairstylist, who cuts and colors hair at Koop Studio in BGC or at Pineapple Lab in Makati, became known through word of mouth for knowing how to style and appreciating textured hair—as a person with 2c curls, I know how stress-inducing it is to go to a salon and continuously have to stop stylists from trying to straighten my hair.
Chiyo, Makati
Tucked in Bel-Air, Makati is Chiyo: a salon owned by Japanese hairstylist Chiyo Tagami who also acts as the main stylist. “Tagami has become one of Manila’s best-kept secrets—using Japanese aesthetics on a discerning clientele, giving them cool, modern cuts,” wrote Mel Cuevas in the Philippine Daily Inquirer last 2019.
Suyen Salazar
Suyen Salazar is a New York-trained freelance hairstylist, and you might be familiar with her work if you’ve ever combed through Instagram pages of local celebrities and influencers with relaxed beach wave hair. Salazar is particularly well known for giving dry hair cuts, which allows you to see what your hair is going to look as it’s being cut, among other things.
Jing Monis
Another celebrity stylist on this list is Jing Monis, who has been in the industry for almost three decades. He has four eponymous salons in Metro Manila—if you’re willing to shell out for more, you can book an appointment with him through there.
Henri Calayag
Henri Calayag has been styling hair for about forty years, building his empire by cultivating a relationship with his clients, many of whom are celebrities. “The relationship I have with my clients, we’re always the ones who compromise,” he explains. “They will be the one to tell their friends who they go to for their hair. At the end of the day, the clients still rule.”
Alex Carbonell
Alex Carbonell is a trusted name in the hairstyling industry, after receiving training under Sebastian Hair in Los Angeles and Revlon International Academy, and eventually being named Schwarzkopf’s first Filipino brand ambassador. The stylist is also behind Bench’s Studio Fix, a salon where many celebrities get their hair done.
Emphasis
Emphasis Salon is an upscale salon and spa in Rockwell, Makati. Its Lebanese creative director and top stylist Moussa Abdayem, has become a well-known figure among beauty enthusiasts in the metro “with his signature layered cuts,” writes Isabel Roces for Inquirer.net.
Photo by Guilherme Petri on Unsplash
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