May 8 Wed 2013
On schedule, Thurs 2 May I dropped by the place. As of my last search online, there are no (proper) reviews of MJ Tokyo.
Different prices depending on what you want done. I chose the haircut with Ice Shampoo $20. Blow drying is self-service (which is strange. How hard can it be? Can't even do this little bit more for the customer?).
Curious what "ice" shampoo was, I decided to try it, together with their hairwashing technique.
A slim young man with yellow short hair attended to me at the menu-money machine. I spoke English, he replied in Chinese. That's when I thought he's Malaysian. It didn't bode well.
So far, hairstylists whom I knew were Malaysians never cut well.
The "salon" looked empty. Only later, I realized there was an Ang Mo man at the front somewhere because of his loud voice talking to his auntie "stylist". I couldn't see him, but assumed he had his hair cut.
At the start, I was led to the back of the small "salon" where I sat in a black seat facing a big mirror.
1) The design of the place is very poor. Not only is it small, it is very badly laid out. While my hair was being washed, it looked to me more like a second-rate place trying to pass off as a salon in a shopping mall. I'm surprised it's by a Japanese company. Very sloppily done.
2) The yellow-haired young man didn't have his name showed anywhere (QB has its "stylists'" names in the slots in front). No name card, and I didn't bother to ask.
3) Haircutting "skill" was bad. He didn't know when to stop (typical of bad "stylists"). Just kept cutting in a bad way until it got too short. A hair crop. Not haircut. He was like a man with shears cropping a shrub until he gets a shape.
4) Smell. I was pretty sure he didn't smell of cigarette when he spoke at the start. But the moment he put the cloth over me, I smelled stale cigarette smoke. Didn't they sterilize the cloth like QB for every customer? Or at least wash it? Do they just keep using the same piece of cloth over and over for 1 week?
And before the hairwash, he draped a plastic (?) "bib" over me and it stank. Musty and damp odor. Didn't they dry or clean it?
5) His hairwashing was like a man washing the dishes. I bet previously he must have worked as a kitchen hand in a cheap Chinese restaurant somewhere. Trying to pass off as a "salon stylist"?
His hands showed no feeling in his hairwashing and it was rather rough-handed. Either he needs to learn the proper way, or quit this job because it is not suitable for him.
6) He was polite throughout. Even asked me if the water temperature for the hairwash was too hot. But he is poor at his job.
A good hairstylist don't need to love a customer to do a good job. Just needs to love his job.
At the end, he informed me in Chinese that "at our place, customers blow dry their hair over there" and indicated the little space with hairdryer and mirror with unknown brands of hair gel and hair wax by the side.
After thanking him and beginning to dry my hair, I saw that he went to the little staff area, took off his apron, hung it and left quickly.
7) Just as he started getting the ice shampoo as I lay tilted back in my seat, I asked what it was. He said it's "cooling". I understood it as "menthol". I asked what brand. He said Japanese. Shiseido? He said no.
Later when I left, I saw their poster said the brand is "Kracie". The same brand that makes facial wash that Watsons sells/sold. I did a review on one of their facial washes as well in another blog.
8) The concept of pushing the wash basin to the customer's seat and then tilting the customer's seat back to the portable basin, is very bad. Very poor and cheap idea.
It may seem like it's ingenious and space-saving, but it really just shows how small the place is and how makeshift everything is.
9) Frankly, I think the "stylist's" own hairstyle/haircut looks better than mine. Where did he get it? Certainly not from his own workplace?
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