Today I got a new haircut! I don’t know how much hair I got cut off, but it was ALOT. Maybe a foot? It is a bit shorter that what I wanted–my stylist just kept cutting even though I showed her multiple pictures of what I wanted. It also might not look good because all hair that had been straight permed got cut off and she round-brushed it. I think I look like a little boy, and wish it was longer–hopefully it grows out super fast before I go to Japan. I also was all sweaty and such from walking Georgetown->Rosslyn while trying to flatten and un-curl-under my hair so I didn’t look like a 10 year lost old school boy. I thought $65 was a reasonable price (considering I’ve paid $40 at ‘normal’ salons for a hack job) but I did not factor in tip and the fact that I was ‘supposed to tip the shampoo girl’. geez. so I paid $85, BUT I hope it will be like my last hair cut (in Japan) that was such a good cut that it lasted me a year because it was meant to look good as it grew.

OZUKI SALON

http://ozukisalon.com/

I first learned about Ozuki Salon during DC’s Sakura Matsuri (Cherry Blossom Festival) because they had a booth selling hair products. I don’t know what I was expecting, but it wasn’t what I got. I traveled up and down TJ NW looking for them, then realized they were in a large building, across a courtyard (very hidden). Once I walked in, I felt really awkward because right-and I mean RIGHT-in front of me were people getting their hair cut. I had to look around for someone to recognize me and check me in and then looked for where I was supposed to sit and wait. I read reviews of the salon before I went and it was hot and cold. It seems that everyone either had a really good experience or a really bad one, but the consensus was that Shigemi was the best stylist, and I got her. Out of all the stylists, only 3 were Japanese. (2 women, 1 man). The rest of the staff was not. [Even thought Ozuki makes a point on its site that you can choose to conduct your 'experience' in english or Japanese]. I had to wait a little while she cut this guy’s hair and then I showed her the pictures of what I wanted it to look like. I think she just didn’t understand the pictures. She kept looking and looking at them and nodding to herself or saying things to herself. I didn’t think the cut was that difficult, but apparently it was. After shampooing, I did NOT get the famous ‘tea and cookie’ that everyone says is this salon’s hilight. She cut my hair and then blowdried it (I don’t know why she round-brush dried it under–I never wear my hair like that and hate it) and then ‘texturized it’. She looked like she did NOT know what she was doing and was trying to cut my hair each and every way with everything to try to replicate the picture–in fact she spent 5-10 minutes on one section of my hair until she moved on to the next. At the end, my hair was a bit shorter than what I wanted, and it didn’t look like she had slaved for an hour to cut it. All that work to ‘texturize’ it and it sort of looked like a mousy mullet bob hybrid. >_<. I don’t think I’ll go back again, but I’ll have to try and style it myself (without her roundbrush aid) and see how it ends up. Plus side is that I got to speak Japanese ^_^. (and realized how much my Japanese has worsened!!)