By Ling Hui
KUCHING, Sept 18: A hair salon here was recently reported to the consumer tribunal for charging more than RM1,600 for a woman’s hairdo including colouring and cutting.
The incident came to light when a social media post about the allegedly unreasonably expensive hairstyling charges incurred by a married couple and their child went viral.
According to a photo of the receipt dated Sept 9 attached with the post, the husband and child’s haircuts cost RM35 and RM25 respectively, while the rest of the RM2,193 bill were expenses incurred by the wife.
The colouring and cutting of her hair cost in total RM1,628 while an additional RM505 was for the purchase of three haircare products.
The social media post dated Sept 15 immediately drew a tsunami of comments from netizens who were divided between supporting the couple and those supporting the hair salon.
Commenting on a photo of the wife’s hair purported taken after the hairdo which was also attached to the post, some netizens lamented that the result was not worth the price.
On the other hand, some argued that the charges were reasonable and common in most salons these days especially for hair colouring services.
The Internet discussion on the incident had since then descended into a frenzy with various memes and reposts, most of them lamenting the excessive cost of hair styling nowadays.
On Sept 15, the hairstylist who was responsible for serving the family took to social media in his own post to tell his side of the story.
He said he had not realised that the viral post was referring to himself until his name and and the name of his salon were published online.
Aggrieved by the call-out, he revealed pricing for his professional hair cutting and colouring services which had been acquired over years of learning and training had always been premium and he never been charged below RM500.
Then, he explained that the husband had insisted on using his services and was willing to reschedule the original appointment from a Thursday to a Friday.
On the day of appointment, the customer went to the salon with his wife and requested the hairstylist to fix her uneven hair colour due to prior bleaching.
“At that time, I did tell the wife that I was going to bleach her hair some more. I also did try to explain to the husband the steps so he would know the process.
“But the husband said to me, ‘No need to explain too much, just use your expertise to make her hair beautiful again. Everything else is not a problem.’
“So, of course, I started doing my job. The bleaching took an hour before the Olaplex treatment application. Then, the hair was dried and colour (Japanese No.3 brand) was applied for 30 minutes.
“After that, a type of Japanese shampoo dye was used to soften the hair colour, and another treatment was applied. The last step was the haircut,” the hairstylist wrote.
He also stressed that he had explained the entire process to the wife, and she appeared to be satisfied with the end results before the couple were asked to pay.
As for the consumer tribunal case, the hairstylist said he would leave it to his lawyers. — DayakDaily
