ROARRRRRRR 🙂
I just LOVE how body art perpetuates in all areas!

Gone are the days where body art only restricts us to draw Buncho or Acrylic paints on our faces during a circus carnival. Tattoos might’ve been something to frown upon by the elders back in the days but oh no, not anymore – not in this era.

You see many urbanites sporting artsy-fartsy tatts and yes, even grizzly looking ones on almost all areas of the body namely the arms, calves, shoulder blades, back, belly, ears, neck, wrist and the list goes on. But have you actually seen one :

Now you will.
BECAUSE IMMA SHOW YOU THAT IT’S POSSIBLE.

Courtesy of Xavier Mah, PR Manager of A Cut Above, I was extended an invitation to attend Malaysia’s Largest Hair Tattoo Competition Finals 2009 held in Zouk KL. Being an avid fan of tattoos, body art and body mods myself, I was looking forward to it all week! 🙂

Thanks dude! 🙂

So yeah, we made our way to the VIP area of Zouk’s mainroom and waited for the event to begin. It kickstarted with 2 emcees which looked as thought they came out from the netherworld, complete with dreadlocks, doning black from top to toe and with kohl liners too.

We were kinda the only few peeps who weren’t wearing black

In fact, this event had THE MOST amount of guests wearing black that I have ever saw. Ya know in Malaysia, hair stylists or people in this in hair industry always seem to have a thing for black. Everyone looked like groupies of My Chemical Romance! 🙂

Mr. Don Seale of Wahl Far East gave his speach on why Wahl products
should only be used for fine and precise hair tattooing

The emcees then introduced a special guest and one of the judges for this Hair Tattoo Competition up the stage. Mac is a world reknowned hair tattooist all the way from Japan!

I reckon that “Mac” could be a short name from his
looooooong Japanese name 🙂

Charity is always such a beautiful thing. To give and donate to others with a kind heart gives a sense of a fulfilling wonder back to you. This whole event was actually a joint collaboration between Hair For You For Me (H4ufme) Malaysia and Lions Club of Bukit Tengku, supported by their main sponsor Wahl.

All the proceeds of this charitable event goes to 5 designated beneficiaries Disabled Homes, Deaf Homes, Childrens’ Homes and Kidney Failure Patients. Count me in whenever there’s charity involved! 🙂

Here’s Mac demonstrating a Phoenix + Dragon hair tattoo

It was soon time for the finalists to come up on stage to showcase their fine works of tattoo art. The stage was very oddly shaped so I couldn’t get to shoot ALL of the contestants but here’s a few though. Let’s take a look at some of them!

I have my personal favorites, what’s yours?

This one was a fusion!
Reggae colors and dreadlocks on top

The flaming skull totally reminded me of Hot Wheels!

Bloody cool Hellboy designs
Not to mention, the hair tattooist was really cute too
with hair ala dragonball character

THE NEXT ONE TOTALLY WOWED ME

My personal favorite 🙂
Look closer, you’ll see facial features,
complete with eyelashes and mascara

AND SINCE
it’s my favorite, here’s another angle of them 🙂

Blingblings on the sideburns yo!

More! Spot Spiderman
All of them vying to win the overall tital

When all the contestants finished doing their thang on stage with a few intervals of mysterious dance shows of dancers clad fully in a black translucent netting by A Cut Above, it was time for THE WALK of fame.

She was the only female model being hair tattooed!

My booties were beginning to kill me. So I finally sat down after a few hours standing. When each and every finalist and their models were done with the catwalks,it was time to reveal the winner!

But while waiting, how can I not camwhore with the peeps around me ey?

Mac the (cute) Hair Tatoo Artist from Japan and I

And of course Xavier and Erin
who were sitting beside me 🙂

OKAY NOW LEMME ANNOUNCE THE TOP 3!

Winner

R5. Steve Chong Wai Fatt + His striking hellboy creation

1^st Runner Up

R2. Heacky Cheach Yeu Hoe + His multi-coloured skull creation

2^nd Runner Up

R6. Peter Pang Yong Chang + His life facial features creation

(He also bagged Most Talented Artist Award!)

Which was your fave anyhow?
Mine is still THE FACE! 🙂
So abstract and Aquarius-like

I arrived rather nervously, at a highway I’ve never taken to Bangsar before. Slowly but surely my car halted to a stop at a traffic light and I immediately spotted BSC, Bangsar Shopping Complex on my far left.

Courtesy of Xavier Mah, the PR & Communications Manager of the premier and leading hairstyling center and academy, A Cut Above, I was extended an invitation to their grand opening.

Prepare for some wicked and bewildering looks of the century! 🙂

Whoa!

The grand opening of today’s event marks the start of the largest A Cut Above outlet – ever! With an abundance of hairstyling space and private rooms, tools & equipments, staff and well-trained craftsmanship from A Cut Above, this new flagship store is something to look forward to!

The front entrance

Right before the press conference, I checked out the entire interior of this new outlet. And I love it! Such a modern feel yet never leaving the key elements of a hair salon should resemble. Here’s only one part of it though, the hairwash section :

From what I noticed, they use leading brands such as Kerastase
and Loreal while servicing their clients

Whilst I was still exploring, I managed to catch the preperations and last minute touch-ups in progress. Whoaa for big hairdos!

Must be for the hair show later, I reckon

Dayang Nurfaizah getting her hair all stylo-mylo
before making her appearance

I hung out for a while walking around and chatting with some familiar faces (in the media line, you’re bound to keep meeting the same people over and over again!) when I bumped into Winnie Loo. Without her, A Cut Above wouldn’t have been proudly standing here till today.

She’s the queen bee yo
Founder and MD of A Cut Above!

Much respect goes to her. She started this empire from scratch when she was young and has since spread its wings to many outlets in the Klang Valley and KL City.

The press conference soon began and we were ushered to another room to have a seat. This was where she and Xavier shared the lowdown on the opening of this spanking new outlet. When I threw the question, I asked if she was still very much involved in the haircutting/hairstyling part where she 1st begun, despite climbing so high in this industry and already being on the manegerial level.

She mentioned that she was “still very hands on and even
personally cuts the hair of some of her clients upon request.”

I liked the part where she stated that despite having thousands and thousands of staff, she “will never put down her scizzors, why give the fun to someone else?” Well said, babe!

Moments later before the event officially begun, I spotted even more familiar faces and as usual, we camwhored over some drinks, a dinner buffet and yes.. Haagen Daaz ice-cream!

To grace this event, over 40 celebrities were seen mingling about as well. A notable pair being the one directly above. Anita Sarawak, the diva and her Caucasian husband, now acknowledged as Mahathir. I like how they match perfectly well at every event, from the hair colour (were both blonde previously!) to the apparel they have on their backs.

The official ribbon-cutting ceremony!

Both, the emcees Baki and Aishah Sinclair
did a swell job in hyping up the crowd!

The 1st to go on stage was a duo of Dennis Lau, the amazing musician and Shafinaz Selamat, the Malaysian songbird. Together they cooked up a ravishing duet performance of both vocals and instrumental elements!

As soulful as ever

What really cracked me up during the following performance was that the singer was in her own world singing while Winnie Loo was also in her own element spraying the former’s hair!

In their very niche of life!
Such an entertaining performance

Before we knew it, dramatic music was heard blasting from the speakers and everyone huddled by the red carpet to watch the fiery showdown of eccentric hairdos of the century.

Such creative hairdos really enthralled all of us. Coupled with tight fitting latex suits and heavy make up, this one’s perfect for a galactic battle!

Singing ‘One Night Only’ was Nikki, a former Malaysian Idol finalist. I could hardly recognize her as the last time I watched it was when I was still in high school. My my, look how much she progressed in terms of vocals and stage presense! Woots

Last but never the least, came buddy Shawn the human beatbox to crank up the after party. Who’s not to love him? He’s our small little fellow who can bellow a herd of wilderbeasts away!

Beatboxing one of his trademark performances,
Benny Benassi’s Satisfaction

The party ended with more photo taking, mingling and fooling around. I had a great time at the event and well, it was a blast! From the food, the warm company, the performances and everything… kudos to A Cut Above!

You’ll see me back here very soon, Imma dye back my red streaks of hair. It’s time for a touch up! Oh but.. um.. not.. like this afro though!

never in a thousand years!

OMFG Just got back from eXtreme hair salon last night and there goes my yikes! RM500 again. I remember blogging sometime back about my hair escapades. It’s about the revolution of changing my hairstyle and colour and length throughout the years.

See it – here

The colour of this picture is obviously
helped by the afternoon sun and photoshop

For those long-time readers of my blog, most of yall would know that I’ve always been a red head. Did it red for 5 times already. But as most red-heads would lament, the red pigments will eventually FADE and turn into some dingy yellowish-orange disgusting colour. Eww.

Like this –

So as usual, I couldn’t stand my hair looking so unwell maintained. I proceeded to the hair salon to get rid of that horrid color. Probably doing it red again or having a darker shade.

Just before the process

And when it’s done, here I am venting my frustration about how uncomfy I am with my new hairdo. Been lamenting about it in my tweets all night the moment I got home. Yeah I’ve been in mild depression with mom saying I look like Cleopatra with my new bangs 🙁

It’s friggin short, okay???
I didn’t expect him to chop my fringe off when I said :

“I want a bit of bangs this time but
do it red for me like you always have”

I didn’t say :

“Make me look like an idiot with uber short bangs and dark red/purple hair that looks like black”

So not what I wanted.
You can’t even see the colour!

During dinner with Ketiak and Minny, I kept telling them how awkward I was and conscious I felt with that uber short fringe. The colour was almost black. I did not want to look like a high-school girl!

Minny liked it, but Ketiak didn’t.

So yeah, I got home.. and my maid told me it was nice. But mom just kept laughing. OMG even Michael Jackson’s father laughed at his nose. And now.. mom laughed at my hair! I’m not gonna give my hair plastic surgery (if that is possible at all) just because you sniggered at me, mom.

With the help of my tripod and mom (how ironic) . I did “self-photography” to see how it actually looked like on photos. Self-photography is actually a very interesting term mentioned to be before by my friends Jeffro and Joyce.

Okay with the picture above, I failed.
The focus point wasn’t correctly set and the photo turned out really blur with the background being the subject of focus instead. Dang.

Let’s try again. Now, be good Mr. Tripod

A little better. But no matter how much I attempt to camouflage my ugly short fringe and ugly hair colour with my hand, by trying to pull the longer hair towards the front or even posing in an un-geeky manner, it won’t change the fact that I look like a nerd with THE FRINGE.

Thus, making me somewhat emo throughout the day.
The boyfie jokingly said I look like a snail. But still!! 🙁

I like Emily The Strange.

Now with my own mother and boyfie against my new hairdo, this is social suicide! ARGGGGHHHHH next time I won’t trust my hair stylist so much.

yeah yeah STFU
I’m just gonna sit at the corner waiting for my
hair to grow back while you laugh at me.

Reason being why I blogged about having done it already is because I just wanted to get some reader opinions. From a non-biased view, that is.

Cos blogging as though I’ve already done it will open chances for me to gain more input on what you peeps honestly think. So, here is the verdict I’ve summed up from everyone :

Ya know, until and unless I completely transform into a sweet & girlish young thing, I just cannot have that kind of hair. Like all my close ones said: however nice it looks on me, it still just takes away the Jess that they know. My character ain’t there anymore.

I told a white lie! My apologies!
^_^