My Experience: Sunsilk Hair Studio

Two weeks ago Fashionesedaily held a giveaway to try Sunsilk Hair Studio and I was one of the lucky winners. I received two vouchers so I asked my sis to come. Sunsilk Hair Studio is a pop-up salon that opened at Grand Indonesia for a month, if I'm not mistaken. I'm not gonna go through about the salon. This post is just going to be about my experience while visiting.

The "Menu"

The before shot.
Me and my sis decided to do creambath. We arrived very late at Grand Indonesia so I expected that it will be crowded and we will have to wait. After fifteen minutes, our turn finally came. I was called to have my hair washed first. I experienced an unpleasant first impression. The woman who wash my hair asked me,

• her: what service do you want?
• me: creambath.
• her: ooh.. creambath. okay. you look so pretty
• me: oh.. haha..
• her: are you a celebrity? *huh? what?!*
• me: *grin* *awkward silent*
• her: are you? are you celebrity? *okay, stop pushing!*
• me: ... no
  

Okay, at this point I wasn't sure whether she was being nice or trying to kiss someone's back or just plain mocking me. And her tone didn't help either. Seriously, is it an appropriate way to talk to customer? And honestly I was annoyed. Nobody asked if anyone's a celebrity! If I was, you'll see me on TV already! Let's just leave it at that. Geez! The next thing she was busy chitchatting with her friend. Thankfully there was no follow through from that stupid conversation.

I decided to do a creambath that day because honestly I need a massage. I really don't care about my scalp as I didn't think I have any problem in that area. I asked the guy who did my hair, what cream that he use and he said he didn't know because there was only one cream that they use for creambath in that salon. They just use what's already provided. Okay. Apparently I'm using a hair product with questionable benefits... in a salon.

And the massage? Don't even ask. The guy is very nice but I really think that he needs to be trained on how to do a scalp massage without making the customer thinking that he was gonna crush someone's head. Yes I asked him to lessen the pressure a little bit. But still, not only it's forceful it's also not relaxing. I've been a loyal customer of massage parlors, I know how a massage should feel.

And then blow drying came afterwards. I was pretty skeptical when the guy separated my hair into sections, blowdrying and then place the already dried hair together with the wet hair section. No one ever blowdry like that whenever I'm in a salon. But the result came out nicely and it lasted until the next day so that was a relief.

But to sum up, it wasn't a pleasant experience for me.

And since I came with my sister, I think it's only fair to hear her review as well.

"When I heard about Sunsilk Hair Studio from twitter, I was kinda curious. I mean i heard about pop up café, but pop up salon seemed new to me. So when I came there with my sister at first I was surprised that it didn't look so pop-up-ish, the space was prepared quite nicely which made the salon seemed to have been there all the time.

Well, first thing first, since it's named after the hair care brand, I was expecting something more. I used Sunsilk long time ago back in junior high if I'm not mistaken. And I used to love their yellow colored line, it smelled so nice. This time in the hair studio, I mentioned to the "shampoo-ing" lady what my hair problem was, but I didn't see her picking anything special according to my problem. I think she just used the same product for everyone. I thought "what's the point on asking question?" The shampoo-ing process went so-so, I kinda like that she's polite but not too chatty, I hate when people try to talk too much during treatment. She mentioned that everyone kept coming all day, so everyone's so busy. This one didn't leave any special impression to me.

Then off to the creambath session. Once again I noticed the guy didn't ask again what my hair problem was. I don't know, I assume he had the shampoo girl informing him about it? And again, he didn't ask me to pick between their various treatments, he just went ahead and start putting things on my hair. I am quite sensitive about putting hair mask on my scalp, I believe they're supposed to be applied on the hair strands, and putting it on the scalp will most probably result in dandruff or dryness, so it made me uneasy when he just started putting products everywhere on my head. And to put it shortly, I could do better without the so-called massage. Usually people in hair salons ask whether you just want a warm towel or steamer, and I tend to go for warm towel because my hair is dry. This guy just put the steamer right away so I just rolled my eyes *really!*

Then after rinsing, came the drying process. THIS is the one that left very special impression to me. Please be aware that I really hate this drying process. In fact, if I knew they'd do this to my hair, I'd rather came home with drenched hair. Yes, it's that bad. Here's why. I go to work everyday and I use hair iron each and every day at least to fix the tip of my hair, to make it shape nicer. Even by doing that every morning, I've never seen my hair looked so suffering. Usually when you want to use heat products so close to your hair, you have to make sure your hair is COMPLETELY dry. When you're still drying with hair dryer, you gotta maintain the distance so you won't sizzle your hair. Even more when you're using hair iron or curler. But this guy just dry my hair from safe distance for like less than a minute, then reached out for a brush, started to style my hair (it's not even HALF wet, it's still soooo wet) and put the hairdryer's end soooo close to my hair. Yes it's shaped nicely afterwards, but I was really concerned at how frizzy my hair ended up. Every strands' ends was making unhealthy little curls. Sorry, I got emotional every time I have to reminisce about this. All in all I got so disappointed with the result, cuz going to a hair studio, you expected your hair to be treated better than you do at home, but this….???

I appreciated the free product and photoshoot, but they didn't even pick the product especially for each and every one. It's just there, I got the curly something shampoo which I gave away. I think based on this review you'd understand that I won't go there for creambath treatment anymore (HA!), I'm kinda curious about the QiQi Franky make up, but as for hair (even if it has Sunsilk on the marquee), the moral of the story is: better to do it by myself at home."

After the treatment.

All the treatments were given for free, thanks to the vouchers. We received one Sunsilk shampoo as complimentary and a chance to take picture.


It was supposed to be the last day of the salon but from what I heard they are extending it. According to the staff, it was because of the high demand. Well, okay... Good for them. Although I do wish there's an improvement on the service.