New Hong Kong arrival Lucy Jones booked her first hair appointment at a funky salon in Causeway Bay. 'With hindsight I suppose it was a leap of confidence, given that the salon staff didn't speak much English and I was clearly their only Caucasian client,' she says. 'But from my office window I'd watched Asian girls leaving the salon, looking a million dollars.
'The haircut was a total disaster. The stylist kept laughing, and calling his colleagues over to feel my 'baby hair'. He just didn't know how to deal with my fine, limp, jaw-length bob. The haircut - a layered crop - was so awful I cried in front of the mirror every morning for weeks.'
We've all had the haircut-from-hell experience, but you can minimise your chances of ending up with an inappropriate cut by ensuring your stylist knows how to deal with your type of hair. Experienced hairdressers agree it is impossible to handle Asian and Caucasian hair in the same way because each one's texture is unique, and there are definite techniques and styles that suit Asians rather than Caucasians.
Celebrity hairstylist Kim Robinson goes one step further. He says every individual, no matter what their ethnicity, has different hair. 'It's very difficult, for example, to paint all Asians with the same brush. Hong Kong Chinese are different to Singaporean Chinese, to northern Chinese, to Japanese ... There are so many different hair textures and skin textures,' he says.
'You need to work on an individual basis and listen to the client. Every woman wants something that works for her, feels good, looks good and is easy to maintain, even though she might be inspired by a look in a magazine.
'In general, Hong Kong women are very aware of international trends and want to be a part of that, but they need to understand the limitations of what their hair can do and understand that what they see in the magazines doesn't always carry through to the street. Don't over-torture the hair by colouring, straightening and perming,' Robinson says.
Paul Fok of Indulgence on Lyndhurst Terrace says that because Asian hair is relatively coarse, thick and straight, it requires much more technical work to create variations and styles. 'The most important task in cutting Asian hair is to create texture, because straight or flat hair is very common. The cut should create an impression of softness to lighten up dark hair.'