Rebonding by Kimage Hair Studio (Tampines) | My holy grail hair salon!

Hello, babes. I’m happy to share another beauty holy grail of mine – conferred less than a week ago. Over the past many years, I’d been jumping from salon to salon trying to find one that produced consistent results. After a decade-long search, I’ve finally found my favourite hair salon – Kimage Hair Studio (Tampines).

If you can recall, I’d reviewed Kimage Hair Studio (Tampines) early this year. That review was purely on haircut service.

Must-read: Review | How a visit to Kimage Hair Studio (Tampines) tamed my thick and poofy hair

This time round, I’ll be reviewing its hair rebonding treatment.

Did you know that a poor hair rebonding job can get your hair fried?

My hair was fried at a salon in Far East Plaza (shop faced plaza entrance). The only remedy was to chop off half the length of my hair, and I had to pay for it because the salon refused to bear any responsibility. It was such a painful and unforgettable episode. Imagine I’d paid a few hundred dollars to kill my hair, and then paid again to get it chopped off.  How cruel is that? OOo….sorry, I got carried away.

Back to this review, I’ll like you to read through some of my thoughts on rebonding before continuing. This will give you some background on the condition of my hair, and why rebonding is deemed a necessity for me.

 

---

Review: Rebonding Experience at Kimage Hair Studio (Tampines)

1. Not your Typical Downtown Salon

Now, let me warn you, this is a neighborhood salon. Even the behavior of the stylists exude a neighborhood vibe.

Typical rules such as “Don’t talk about personal things in front of customers” do not apply.

I almost couldn’t stand it when the two person handling my hair were chit chatting loudly with another two stylists sitting a few metres away. One on my left and the other on my right, gosh…both my ears were attacked. I wasn’t too pleased initially as I couldn’t concentrate on the articles that I was reading off my mobile.

After an hour of assimilation, I was surprised that I no longer felt annoyed. Their free flow of juicy gossips and personal stories among themselves brought to mind how family members behave. When one old-time customer came in, the staff included her in their “sharing”. I remained mostly quiet because they were too engrossed with their conversation. 

If you can bear with this, there are good things to come.  Read on.

2. Take Care of Your hair like their Own

I’ve been to a salon when one staff told another staff: “Hey, help me take care of this HEAD.” Yes, I was referred to as an object. How great!

Over here in Kimage Hair Studio (Tampines), the treatment given was exceptional. There wasn’t a single moment of tension (pulling my hair with too-large a force) or pain within that 3 hours of service. I was treated like a human, thank god!

Special commendation to Yo Yo who stood out as she genuinely care for her customers’ comfort and experience. Yo Yo gave me the best hair wash and massage experience. She was also very gentle when blow-drying or flat-ironing my hair.

3. Customized Rebonding to suit your Hair Type  

With my hair being thick and voluminous, most hair stylists would want to get the job done quickly. I’m referring to the process of flat-ironing the hair, one of the steps for rebonding.

Joyce, the salon manager impressed me when I overheard her reminding her assistant to iron a thinner-than-norm layer of my hair per sweep to achieve good result for my unique hair type (i.e. thick hair).

“We cannot be lazy, ok?”,  she quipped.

In the end, my hair turned out to be smooth, silky and natural-looking. Not overly straight or stiff as what she’d promised me earlier. What a great rebonding job.

Before-After

Now, look at the before-after photos below. The roots were wavy in the before photo, but straight in the after photo. 

Another before-after photo below. I thought I look more feminine with the finer-looking hair in the after photo.  The side near the roots appears less poofy too.

4. Fast Service

I was used to a 4 or 5-hour rebonding job. That’s the normal duration in other hair salons I’d been to. Over here, the job was completed within 3 hours. That’s inclusive of treatment and a great haircut. Imagine, ironing my hair in thin layers and still getting the job done faster.

I wonder how they did it. 

5. You get all the attention! 

With its’ not-too-central location, it wasn’t a surprise when I found myself being the only customer when I arrived on a weekday afternoon. They gave all their love to me. Even after three customers walked in thereafter, I was well-taken care of due to the good Stylist:Customers ratio. 

6. Great Haircut

Once again, Joyce has proven her consistency in turning thick hair to nicely-layered and structurally-thinned hair. My hair is so light I’m now using only half the amount of shampoo.

When I swing my head, the hair has a nice flow to it. Not a block of hair that moves, but strands of hair moving gradually with the motion. Thumbs up!

For a detailed review of the haircut experience, check out this review.

7. Reasonable Price if you own THE EDGE CARD

I paid $217* for the rebonding service. Other salons I’ve been to, had charged me at similar price range.  

Considering that I only need to rebond once a year, this few hundred dollars expenditure isn’t really that extravagant. 

*This is after a 30% discount for all “The Edge Card” holders during their birthday month. On other months, holders would still enjoy 25% discount. You don’t have to pay for the card. What they require is a prepayment of about $1k, of which the amount can be used to offset future expenditure. No expiry date.

 

---

Recommendation

I highly recommend Kimage Hair Studio (Tampines) to those looking for a great rebonding and haircut service. If your hair is long and poofy like mine, there’s even more reason to try out their service.  But this is provided you can get used to the family-vibe (chatty, juicy stories, gossips). Rating: 5/5

(Post-edit on 27 Sep 2017)

After two years with the salon, standards were getting less consistent. Hence, I’m revising the rating to 3.5/5 for the time being and will have to search for another hair salon. Let me know if you know of one that’s great in rebonding and/or cutting very thick hair.

 

---

Love more of such honest reviews? If you like to get notified of my new posts, you can click the button below to subscribe. I’ll even give you some free and exclusive stuff. See you there!

SUBSCRIBE