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Dekko’s Daily Grind.. Michelle

Showcasing some more work from Joni at Dekko Salon. Michelle came in with fairly long hair and wanted to have a change. After a consultation, Joni went about her work and created a shorter cute, messy fresher style for Michelle.

Cut with a razor to give more texture and create messier lines, but still keeping in with the graduated shape through the back to give it a nicer profile, Joni created a shredded asymmetric bob shape that has been styled with styling cream to bring out Michelle’s natural movement in the hair. Nice Joni, thanks for posing for me Michelle : )

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FeatherLocks Hair Extensions..

Nikki Presta is now offering FeatherLocks Hair Extensions in Dekko Salon. So I decided to give you all a run-down of what they are, how its done and what they look like.


If your looking for a way to spruce up, vamp up, have a little change in your hair but don’t want anything permanent or damaging, then you should try FeatherLocks Extensions. These extensions are little rooster feathers ranging from 8 to 16inches in length. There is a vast amount of colors to choose from varying from solids to patterns. And as far as we know, NO roosters were hurt in the process of getting their feathers!

The great thing about these feathers is that they can be washed, blow dried, flat ironed and curled along with your own natural hair. They last between 6 – 8 weeks, and when they grow out away from the roots, they can be re-used again. Each feather costs $15 and the application time will be around 5minutes once the color of feathers and position has been decided. Of course, its best to let Nikki choose the positioning as she would know best as to what shows off the feathers more for each hairstyle. Anyway here are some pictures of Nikki putting afew pinks one into my hair:




Because I had Nikki put them into my fringe area, this meant the feathers had to be cut once they are secured into the hair. First the hair is threaded through a silicone bead and once the length is determined, the pliers will clamp down the bead so it fastens the feather in with the section of hair. Thanks to Lucky for these fab pictures. Of course, just about everyone in Dekko wanted to try it out, but here’s me, Ashley Jill, and Lucky showing ours off.

And just in case you think we look like Dog the Bounty Hunter (thnx Lucky) here’s some really cool people with the Featherlocks, as word is spreading, you can see allsorts of celebs having it done.

we-tried-it-featherlocks1

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Dekko’s Daily Grind–Patricia

Patricia came into Dekko Salon a while ago and had grown her hair long enough so that she could donate it to one of the many organizations that create wigs for people with hair loss with cancer or other diseases. Good for you Patricia.
Anyway as you can see from the pictures below she certainly had a lot of length to work with. We must’ve had about 12 inches that we could cut off and still have a decent shoulder length style.

We decided to give Patricia a style that was around shoulder length, we made sure she had plenty of layers and because her hair is so thick, we took a lot of weight out of it and textured it quite a lot. Because Patricia’s face shape was more on the long side than any other shape, we thought it would be good to give her a softer fringe to balance out the length. We dried it casually with no brush, and then we rolled some styling cream onto the ends just to give it abit more texture.
I must say that we were very pleased with the end result and thought Patricia looked very sexy and
fresh : )
Thanks a lot Patricia for posing and for donating!

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Different types of Bobs and Layers..

As a client it can be very confusing to go into a salon and know what to ask for, especially if you don’t have the technical background and words to back you up.

With this post I’m hoping to help make it abit more clear about the different types of Bobs available and what to expect and how they will look. Of course a post about Bobs is not complete without the mention of Vidal Sassoon, (the king of bobs). I had the privilege of training and working in Sassoon’s in the 80’s and I definitely feel like I got the best training that a stylist can ask for. The 80’s was the time of strict structured shapes before razoring and texturising became so popular, so most of the haircuts were extremely technical, so I felt this helped me with my bob situations. So anyway, I’m using some original Sassoon Classic pictures as well as other examples to help with my explanations and opinions.

The 4 types of bobs I will talk about are shown below with Classic Sassoon pictures:
Classic One Length Bob(2 versions shown) Bob with Layers(medium length and layers)
Bob with Graduation (Classic Nancy Kwan bob for Vogue) and the Graduated Bob.

Classic One Length Bobs:
Great for people who would like a simple cut with no layers to it. (One length means that all the hair is brought down and cut to visually look like one length at the bottom.) Works great if you already have straight smooth hair but it you have any texture to it, it would need alot of blow drying to get the sharp look. For people who have very thick hair, the one length bob is not advisable as it would look very heavy and triangular at the bottom half, therefore adding too much width visually to their cheek area. Length can vary from hairline length to the top of the shoulders, and what can also vary is whether the bottom part is cut blunt with the scissors or razored through giving it soft edges like Gwyneth Paltrow’s. Here are afew other samples of One Length Bobs:

Bob with Layers:
This is something you could ask for if you like the look of a bob shape but your hair is too thick to have the classic one length, Layers can be added to your hair and can vary from short to longer fuller layers. Length too can vary from hairline to top of shoulders. Can be done on straight, wavy or curly hair. Afew more example of Bobs with layers on Nicole, model and Cathy done by Joni at Dekko:



Bob with Graduation:
This Bob shape is one of my favorites because not only is it a sharp defined shape, but it is fantastic and almost a must for making fine thin hair look fuller. (Graduation means to build up weight from short to long creating a fuller shape) It is also a flattering ‘all age’ shape that in my eyes, will never date. This one is where the bob appears to be one length but in fact there is graduation in it, much more at the back and then blending into the sides. The graduation that is put into it can be either very subtle or much more exaggerated (think Katie Holmes with her bob), if the hair is cut well then even without the blow day, the shape will hold and form a fuller look, this technique/style can be done on straight, wavy or curly hair. Here’s Katie’s as well as a couple of clients, Rachel and Simone from Dekko:



Graduated Bobs:
Last but not least this one is the shorter version of the Bob. The difference between this one the others is the back. Rather than having a straight clean line like the others, this one works the hair short into the nape from the occipital bone and follows your natural hairline into the nape. Asian hair in particular have a harder time with this one because the hair is usually coarser so it can stick out wildly, whereas with the finer hair and hairlines, this style can look very soft and feminine. It has a much stronger look because of the length, for me as soon as you mention Graduated Bobs, Louise Brooks (20’s silent movie star) and Mary Quant (60’s fashion icon)come to mind. Most clients who ask for the jaw/cheek level bobs needs to understand that if your natural hairline is longer than your desired length then you will have the graduated shorter part in the back, I know some of you will call it a ‘step’ and alot of people don’t like it so short so please be aware that you will have the ‘step’ look if you go for the cheek level bob. Also be aware that your natural hairline shape will have an impact on how short the back goes with this style as you have to work with it. Here’s Louise Brooks, Rachel Lim from Dekko, and Mary Quant:

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Dekko’s Daily Grind… Margot

Margot came in to see me at Dekko while she was visiting from Hawaii. Margot hadn’t had a haircut for quite some time so her style was completely gone, and with her hair being on the fine side it needed something that had abit more ‘zap’ to it! It was good that Margot works in the creative field and is able to have her hair abit more on the fun side. Here’s Margot when she came in:

I decided to try to thicken up the hair and give it a more definite shape. We went for an asymmetric shape, building up a ‘bobby’ type of shape but with some disconnection throughout the top layer to make it stand out more. The front area was already short so I decided to take it even shorter to bring out her gorgeous eyes more and make her look abit ‘doll’ like..

Here’s the cut afterwards… Amplifier was used and the hair was just dried with the fingers to get more lift and a volumising spray was used afterwards to mess it up abit.

Thanks Margot, for posing and letting me post : )
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Dekko’s Daily Grind – Helen Ip

Every so often in Dekko Salon we get clients who really want to have full-on changes, so here we have Helen who came in to see Joni Shibata at the salon for her change.
Here’s Helen before her haircut:


The hair is in a long basic layered look with a softer swept over fringe. She wanted to have a much shorter asymmetric look, which was stronger, trendier and had some ‘pop’ to it, she brought in a picture with a slight bowl look and here was Joni’s interpretation of it using both scissors for the bluntness and a razor for the texture. Very cute and dramatic. Thanks Helen for letting us show it and letting us know how much you love it : )

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Stevie Wong!!

Wanted to do a special post on my very good friend Stevie. I was lucky enough to meet Stevie during his younger days at MTV Asia, dancing around the offices as a Production Assistant.
Nowadays Stevie is a major celebrity interviewer and is based in New York, Hong Kong, LA, in fact he’s all over the joint interviewing just about every celebrity who is anyone out there! Check him out on Star TV’s VIP Access on You tube interviewing everyone, very coolly too, I might add!


Stevie is also a huge reviewer of music: www.wongiesworld.blogspot.com and media: www.wongiesworld.tumblr.com so you can check out and follow his thoughts,feelings and obsessions!!

OK, so enough Stevie promotion, I chose to have Stevie on my blog because he has the worst type of Asian hair ever!! That typical type of sticky out, swirly bog brush type of hair (sorry Stevie : () So we got him into Dekko Salon and got Scott Klasssen to do his magic makeover. Stevie’s hair was just abit overgrown when he came in and Scott decided to give him a short tight cute haircut that can me either stuck up or flattened down depending on what mood Stevie was in…

I think we can all agree that Stevie looks sooooo cute, its unbearable!! Thank luv’!! And thanks to Scott for fighting all those cowlicks and swirls…

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Dekko’s Daily Grind – Katie

So here’s Katie who came to Dekko salon with her long overgrown hair, Katie’s hair is naturally curly at the back of the head and then the front and sides are pretty straight. She wanted to have something that could could wear curly or straight.


We kept Katie’s hair on the long side but decided to cut the layers to a medium length. With the front area, we made it much more definite so that the straighter hair could form a stronger look with or without blow-drying. I always think with this type of hair, its much better to have it straight on the front areas rather than the other way round of having it straight at the back and curly at the front, which would make it very hard to control. After the cut, we blow dried the hair straight, using a straightening balm to help smooth the ends more and to hold it in place. Here’s Katie after the cut, she definitely looks alot cuter don’t you think?


Thanks alot Katie for posing for me…
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Dekko’s Daily Grind..Kim

Another dose of ‘before and after’ styles from Dekko Salon. Our clients are so great for letting me take photos to show different looks for my blog – Thanks again for all your help.
I’ve been cutting Kim’s hair for over 10years now and she has always been very creative with her haircuts over the years, just recently we have been keeping Kim’s hair on the longer side. So this is Kim after not having a haircut for over 5 or 6 months. That’s because she’s abit of a gypsy and has lived all over the States, right now she comes all the way from Chicago : )

We decided to keep the hair on the longer side but ‘chop’ all the rest of it up with shorter layers and a shorter front area, so that if she decides to tie her hair up, it still looks like a cute short haircut on top. We razored the hair throughout as Kim’s hair is very thick and coarse. We then styled it using a styling cream for hold and dried it while twisting the hair into big sections, creating a messy textured look. Thanks Kim!
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Dekko’s Daily Grind – Cathy

I wanted to feature some work from one of our other stylists from Dekko Salon. Joni Shibata Philips has been with the company since it started and here she is with Cathy, about to do quite a drastic change.

Cathy came in with long thick hair and wanted to donate her hair to Pantene’s Beautiful Lengths, I wrote an earlier post on Donating Hair and if you want to re-cap follow this link: https://jujuchan.com/2009/03/hair-donations.html

Most companies are quite strict and need at least 10 inches before they will accept the hair, but at least this one does accept colored hair, whereas some of the other companies needs the hair to be in its ‘virgin’ state. Cathy being the ideal candidate anyway, came in to see Joni and I couldn’t resist documenting the change for you.

Here’s Cathy during the ponytail cutting section:

Joni cut the hair just below the shoulder and because the hair is so heavy and thick, she proceeded to layer it through and took LOTS of weight out of it to ensure that the hair is able to move and that it will be easy to keep. The hair was then blow-dried and a pomade was rubbed into the ends to give it a chunkier finish to the layers. Here’s Cathy looking very fresh with her newly shorn locks.

Thanks Cathy for posing for the photos : )