Magic Wave: Not a Harry Potter Spell

After a lot of deliberation and other friends taking the plunge, I decided to lose my virginity.


...


My hair virginity, you freaks!


I've always been a bit indifferent to my straight hair. While I'll admit, it is really convenient to be able to jump out of the shower, run a brush through my hair and take off, it's gotten a bit dull during the day-to-day. Seeing as how I'm looking for some change (as if moving to Korea wasn't a big enough change in my life), I made the decision to get the Magic Wave (also called a digital perm), much to my earlier hesitation of leaving my hair alone for all eternity. 


Based on many recommendations by previous GETs, I made my way to the Serrano Hair Salon in the Banwoldang area of Daegu. Let me tell you - that place is pumpin' with clients. I was greeted (in English!) by Ji Won, who turned out to be my main stylist. After figuring out what I wanted, she quoted me at 160,000 won for a bit of Magic Straight (which I ended up just 'needing' near my roots and thereby dropping the final price to the cash figure of 90,000 won), a trim and the final Magic Wave. Yes, I know that it's a lot, but I had already made up the decision in my head and was not going to back out!

Before

After engulfing my hair in a solution to make my hair soft, the shampoos and the trim (the trim took all of ten minutes!), I was hooked up to this...thing. It's a definite octopus contraption and makes me semi look like Medusa, no? Notice my face in the photos. Please note that those are 100% genuine facial expressions.

And we're just getting started

Almost done getting hooked up!

After sitting in this chair for 30ish minutes, another solution was put in my hair, I was shampooed and BAM! ...Just kidding. It was not a Princess Diaries makeover moment. In fact, I was pretty underwhelmed with the outcome. See below.

After

After, with some effort on my part

So moral of the story, I paid 90,000 won for my hair to look like it does at the end of the day after I curl it, and even that is a bit of an exaggeration to the extent of the 'wave' that my hair has. Needless to say, I was not a satisfied client. I spoke with Ji Won, who apologized that she hadn't initially clarified the amount of curl that I wanted. The thing is, I'm not really angry, as it could have turned out a lot worse (especially with the language barrier). But I'm glad that my mom taught me to use my words and speak up, because I was definitely not okay with the end result. Ji Won was really professional about it and tried to remedy the situation with multiple solutions, ending with me ultimately making an appointment this upcoming Friday. Hopefully I'll have even better photos to show you!

xo