Hairloom Stylist Spotlight: Terence Lai

Terence joined Hairloom 3 months after its inception. With 9 years of experience under his belt, the senior stylist is known for his short edgy cuts, and is popular with both our male & female clientele. Chatty and friendly, he’s always quick to share a tip or two with his customers; the favorite part of his job is meeting all kinds of people and seeing them walk out with a fabulous haircut of his creation.

We catch up with him and find out more about what he’s been up to!

Tell us more about your experience as a hair stylist.

I started out at a salon in Far East Plaza on Orchard Rd. Previously, the hair styles I cut at that salon were more feminine and simple – pretty standard fare. Hairloom customers on the other hand, are much more bold and like to try new things. Over these 5 years, I’ve learnt a lot from Calvin, and got many opportunities to test my skills on bolder customers. It really opened my eyes to new things and the breadth of my skills have widened so much.

What are you best at?

Well, my customers say that I’m good at short hairstyles. I’m good at giving people an edgier look. I personally enjoy cutting short hairstyle more too – it gives you more styles to cut, more room to play, you can change it up a lot to suit the personality of the customer.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Everywhere and anywhere – on the internet, pictures on Facebook,  magazines, seasonal product look books, and trend prediction publications – and then I just ‘mix and match’ them to come up with my own looks with my own unique take on them.

So tell us what you’ve been busy with lately.

Well for April I was focused on coming up with my look for this year’s Goldwell ColorZoom 2013 competition. This time around, I really let loose a little more with it. (You guys will get a peek when the semi-final results are announced end May!) In the sense that the look I created was more flexible, not controlled, went with the flow. Disconnected layers was a big theme.

What do you look forward to doing this year?

I want to go for more shoots, and to experience different things outside of the salon environment, because that’s where new inspiration lies.  I also want to update my skills this year  – like learning how to do make-up professionally. Every year there are new trends, you need to learn new stuff constantly too – so I just want to be able to travel and see what’s coming up so I can create new and fresh looks for my customers.