DIY hair and nails: a milestone?

Sometimes I don't know who's braver: Is it I, for cutting my husband's hair? Or is it the husband, for letting me cut his hair? 

I figured the husband is braver.

And he has a great sense of humour too. 

Check out what I did to him over the past year:





Jan 2013 - I need an onion for my fried rice.



Feb 2013 - Too soon to be celebrating the passing out parade, recruit!



Jul 2013 - Which farm were you from again, and how many cows you were looking after?

You can say that his patience finally paid off after a year of putting up with my (lack of) hairdressing skills. We got some tips from my hair stylist friend - pin up the top and shave the sides! - and eventually came up with a look that MAY pass off as a salon-cut:









Feb 2014 - hello Oppa!



I think that's by far the best I've done, and I'm tempted to celebrate this as a milestone in our DIY home salon.

But then again, I always feel accomplished as long as there's no bleeding involved and his ears are intact. Safety above all else, right?

On a related front, I did my nails again. This time round, Panda agreed to help with the nail art bit. See the black dotted lines? His work.

Not too bad for a first.

Giving my now wrinkly, housework-battered hands some colour

I think there's something sweet, something fun about doing frivolous stuff for each other.

Comfort food that spells 'home'

There's nothing like home-cooked food. Especially food that's from your home country!

Was invited to Wendy's place to have claypot rice and bak kut teh today. They are easily two of my favourite dishes because I love hot soupy stuff and I love rice. Add Chinese sausage and mushroom to steaming hot rice and tau pok to soak up the peppery soup... I felt like I was in food heaven.



The two lovelies with whom I hang out in FC

Claypot rice is best with Chinese sausage. Oh-so-fragrant!

Get good pork ribs for the soup. And tau pok to soak it up!

Wendy said she used the recipe from noobcook for the claypot dish (by the way noobcook is highly recommended for Asian cooking). I'm tempted to buy a claypot too but I'm not sure if I'd use it often enough - it's just Panda and me most of the time.

Plus, I read that you need to prep the claypot first and then clean it with extra care. Use lemon or vinegar to clean it as the porous material might absorb the soap detergent. Hmmm... Sounds like a lot of effort?

On a separate note, we hit the gym before going over to Wendy's and I didn't have time to wash my hair. So I used dried shampoo to clean and puff it up, backcomb the pony tail before looping a top bun. (The new comb is good for backcombing!)

I finally master that messy bun without using a hair sponge after all these years. I'm such a late adopter/learner... but I must say it's the best thing ever for bad hair or dirty hair days. Yay!



All bundled up!

Bang bangs again



The first time I tried to cut my own bangs was when I was 3 or 4 years old.

I recalled sitting in one corner while my grandparents were busy playing majong. I recalled picking up a pair of scissors, looking into a small mirror and cutting my own hair. After that, I was caned so badly by Grandpa that I hid under the staircase and would not come out until Grandma offered me chocolates. He didn't cane me for cutting my hair actually. He canned me for lying in school and telling my teachers that my haywire hairstyle was cut by my grandparents.

Grandpa taught me not to lie. Perhaps also the lesson of not messing with your own hair unless you are sure you won't look like a wreck.

I cut my own bangs again this week cos it's been too long since the last haircut back home. Thankfully, my hairstylist gave me some pointers for a side swept a few months ago. I also trimmed the hair that's framing the face by taking a sizeable portion from the side (about 2cm in width), angling my scissors downwards, and sliding it down gently from below the cheekbone. My hairstylist does it slightly differently with more hair, but I am not so daring yet. 



I quite like the wispy feel. It looks neater too.

And I think Grandpa won't be too angry if he sees this.

Third time lucky

That's my make shift cardboard hair salon in the toilet. We ran out of white plastic table wraps which we used to lay on the floor to catch the falling hair. So we used a box big enough to sit Panda in and taped brown paper all around it. Recycled materials rock.

We managed to catch most of the hair - no clumps were found on the floor after the haircut! As for the hair that fell on Panda's body, I took a clear plastic bag (those you used to hold veggies and fruits), put my hand inside like a glove, and used it to swipe his back clean. I read somewhere that because of static, hair clings stubbornly onto plastic. And it worked perfectly.

It's my third time cutting hair for Panda. This time round, he looks less like an onion or an army cadet,  he looks normal. It's a big achievement.

I used the same set of hair clipper kit, #6 for behind, #8 for the top (lightly brushing instead of ploughing), #3 on the sides and finally, the bare shaver to clean the neck at the back. Of course, trimming around the ear with scissors.

Panda looks extremely happy after his haircut. He always does. Bye bye to that thick helmet of hair on his head!

Snip snip and away!

Some couples bond over food; some bond over shared interests. Us? We bond over haircut experience.

Panda wanted to cut his hair again. This time, he wanted to shave his head. I was horrified cos I thought his head would be cold. Or worse, round.

We spent 30 mins in the bathroom discussing which blade to use on which part of his hair. It wasn't as easy as it looked. We had to use #7 on top, #5 behind, #6 in the middle and #4 at the side, with some snipping around the ears with scissors. Our joint efforts yield some results. And fortunately, the many hours of gyming at lunch did him good. He looked rather fresh after his new hair cut.

After completing his hairdo, I got inspired to cut my hair too. Panda didn't have the courage to cut my hair, so I made do with shorter bangs.

How do we look?

DIY hair salon

Because having a haircut here is very expensive, Panda decided that he should throw me the challenge of becoming a hairdresser. I don't know who is braver, me cutting his hair, or he letting me cut his hair.

After much deliberation, we bought a DIY shaving kit (Wahl Color Pro Hair Clipper Kit) at Target for US$24. Panda decided that if anything goes wrong, the worst we could do is to shave his head and he can wear a beanie for the next two months.

Thank God that the kit we picked came with precise instructions on how to do a simple cut. In the end, we came up with a reasonably decent look i.e. no need to hide his head under a beanie.

As for me, I bought this 3-barrel wave runner from Bed Head just for fun. It creates tight little curls with just a few application.

So there we have it, our own hair salon!