Trying before you buy

Jing Yang
newsroom@nsnews.com

FOR those who are looking for big changes in hair style but never seem to have the guts to do it, now is your chance.
Square Hair salon, newly opened in Capilano Mall, has one corner of the store dedicated to the essential stage before doing the haircut: finding the style that you want and need.

Salon manager Ray Dye says the store is the flagship on the North Shore to offer clients the option to see themselves in different cuts, styles or colours using the cyber imaging software before they make the
important decision that will determine their look.

Ingrid Zimmermann, long-time hair stylist and Dye's wife, says she prefers to see Square Hair as a professional workshop instead of a pampering lounge.

"I want my salon to rock, to be electric," she says. "Our stylists are edgy, excited and eager to communicate with the clients instead of just telling them to relax."

According to Zimmermann, the computer styling option is a good way to open the door for that kind of communication.

"I've seen clients in the past sitting down in the chair and

feeling silly in a way that she doesn't know how to say what she wants,"

Zimmermann explains. "But with the software, they can show me exactly what they want and I can give my consultation based on that."

As a landed immigrant from South Africa, Zimmermann says this new twist on the Canadian hair scene was introduced to hair salons in her native country as early as 15 years ago. But with the
eye-grabbing set in her new store, she has seen phenomenal improvements.

The most striking feature, she says, is how the client's skin tone in their photo on the computer screen changes with different hair colours as it does in real life.
Zimmermann explains that in professional colour coding, the hair colour, as well as the skin tone, comes in either warm orange or cool blue. So if you have the matching hair colour, it will enhance your skin radiance and her first time at the salon.

"You can't imagine what a huge transformation she has done to my hair without looking at the hair I walked in with," she says. "I am so happy with it; the colour and the style."

Speaking of the recent hair trends, Zimmermann says straight hair is the look with some smoky highlights.

Zimmermann compares her determination to change the face of hair salons in Canada from pampering lounges to professional workshops to putting a square block to a round hole and trying to turn the hole square.

That's how they came to their salon's name: Square Hair.

"We are very serious about hair," says Zimmermann. "We want to focus on that."

Square Hair is located in Capilano Mall near Just Ladies Fitness. Cyber imaging costs $40 per person, and comes with a $15 discount for a haircut at the store.