I'd been back in London for a year and hadn't found a new hairdresser (my former go-to guy in London had emigrated). To the internet! I searched for a salon that would be good for my increasingly-wavy-to-loosely-curled hair. On many a beauty blog and curly hair forum I read about the Diamond Dry Cut at Michael Van Clarke. I was intruiged. I spent a long time watching Michael's videos (aimed at other hairdressers) on YouTube explaining his approach. I was convinced I'd give it a shot.
Being on more of a budget than perhaps some of the MVC clientele, I decided to go with a junior. In my experience, a junior at a high quality salon is still going to be a skilled stylist - places like this don't take someone with no background or talent. Happily, I was correct in this assumption!
In late July I got a haircut with Rosie. She's a really friendly gal and made me feel at ease from the get-go. My hair had been about 14 months without a haircut, and the cut it was growing out from had been cute for a few weeks but grew into a shapeless and heavy mass of hair. I needed to be rescued! In what turned out to be the longest-lasting haircut of my life (over 2 hours, I think!), Rosie used the MVC dry cutting method and scrupulously took my hair from blah, to basically shaped, to beautifully layered. It had life! It had movement! It looked pretty again!
As a new client, I was offered a complimentary follow-up with blowdry within the next 2 weeks for Rosie to fix anything I wasn't happy with and/or make any minor adjustments to the cut. As I was absolutely pleased with the cut 2 weeks on, this just meant that I got a fabulous wash and blowdry (with the best head massage ever). Paired with the follow-up offer was a discount to a beauty service. As I was headed on holiday, I happily took up the offer of a discounted manicure.
This is where things go less than 5 stars. The service of the manicure itself was wonderful: nice shaping, good trimming of cuticles, a great arm and hand massage. The polish selection was minimal, but offered all the usual basic options. I went for a fiery red. As it happens, the manicurist (whose name I've forgotten - sorry) used CND Vinylux 7 day polish. This is a really cool polish that's somewhere between regular varnish and Shellac. I LOVED the shade of red and I went 19 days before I needed to change it - there was just a touch of chipping on 2 previously-damaged nails, but mostly the change was needed due to the growth and the partial loss of shine. But 19 days on a polish with a 7 day selling point? Amazing. HOWEVER - and this is a rather big however - it wasn't set properly to begin with. I think the 2 layers of red weren't given enough time to dry before the quick-drying and hardening topcoat was added because one hand was super bubbly and the other was fairly bubbly. This wasn't apparent until they'd gotten quite dry, of course. The shade was great, and the high shine was wonderful, but I was disappointed in the presence of so many bubbles. When I paint my nails at home, this sometimes happens if I rush the topcoat and usually means I'll start over. Sadly, this wasn't an option as the manicure was done concurrently with the blowdry (I felt very pampered) and the manicurist had moved on to another client by the time my hair was finished.
Verdict: hair = 5 stars, nails = 3.5 stars. I'll definitely be sticking with Rosie for my hair in the future, but not sure about getting my nails done at MVC again. The Diamond Dry Cutting method is time-consuming on the first go round, but now that my hair is shaped so beautifully, I'm sure the maintenance cuts will be a much simpler affair. I highly recommend you check this place out! read more