Jonal Chong Hair Couture

[niobeee]

I went there as my regular hairstylist worked there. Signed up a package. In the end she quit as he was not paying her the full sum of the agreed salary.

Now, i'm stuck with my package. And she told me that some of her customers (including one i know) got a refund from the salon and told me to do the same.

When i went down, the boss of the salon did not even acknowledge or say hi to me. All he did was ask his assistant for the T&C paper and started rattling off "this package is non refundable blablabla". Even when i spoke nicely to him and asked if he could GRACIOUSLY refund me my money, he was extremely rude and said that its only $200+ left. Not alot of money what, why cant i use it. The receptionists apparently thought i was a joke as well.

WTF? He can refund other people but not me!?!?!?

And yes, i read that Nicole Kidman wore a wig during a movie when he claimed he cut her hair!!! Oh, and that his supposed salon in London is at a non-existant address. (Not to mention he smokes in his own bloody salon - i am sensitive to cigarette smoke due to a surgery I had before and I could smell the strong scent of cigarettes after he walked into the room. Oh please! Its illegal to smoke in shopping centres.)

Anyone else in a similar situation please PM me! I am in touch with another person (Whose stylist quitted as the JC did not give the full agreed salary) as well and we are intending to take legal action.

[sher]

Sad to say I'm in the same situation as you.
I made an appointment under my previous stylsit and they didn't tell me he quit until I reached the salon. I immediately gave them a black face and they said will get someone senior to attend to me.
After waiting for half an hour, someone finally attended to me. I was very pissed off but then but I still go ahead because I don't want to waste my package! He briefly helped me choose a colour and as a shampoo boy to do the colour for me.
I thought this is a high class salon, and I paid for a shampoo boy to do my colour???!! He was so slow and inexperienced that he took 2 hours to do my colour!! I kept telling them I had an appointment and I can't be late but nobody bothers! I could see they are very short of staffs as 1 stylist is attending to a few customers at 1 time. In the end I did the colour and have to come back another day for the cut. Bloody waste my time! I left the salon after 2.5hrs and only colour was done.

I wanted to make a fuss and demand for refund but as expected, I doubt they will give in. I read form another forum that the boss is having financial difficulties. I hope it wouldn't be another case of salon shut down!

Seriously, if refund is impossible I rather quickly utilise the package. Ask your friends and family members to help you finish the credits. I feel this salon can't sustain for too long..

[goldenfish]

The salon has really closed down.... I am also left with unfinished package....
niobee and sher, are you really taking legal action?

[nixx]

hmm this is scary.. i just made an appointment to rebond my hair on saturday.. it should still be there...

[sherylng]

*** sux man! I almost went there the last time. Moreover, this saloon was featured in Amica magazine- high end magazine... Nicole kidman? tts funny.

[festiane]

I wish I had read all these reviews before I went into the salon today after seeing the "promotional" prices in the Straits Times. Have never been so unhappy with a salon and so immediately came online to share my experience because I'm so annoyed!

- On the surface it looks flash, but once you look closely, it's filthy. Hair all over the floor, stains on the chairs etc. It was also empty (which should have warned me), with staff slumped in the seats languidly blow-drying their own hair and eyeing me rudely

- The staff (Malaysians mostly) couldn't speak English and were unpleasant, abrupt, and didn't seem very professional or experienced

- When I asked for hair color advice, they just snapped at me to choose it myself. The whole process was ridiculously rushed and I wasn't relaxed at all

- Hair color was slapped on in 5 minutes, no steamer or wrap was used, they washed it out after <20mins as they wanted to go home (this was 7.30pm)

- The staff were inappropriate. Asked me many personal questions, one even suddenly reached out and touched a tattoo on my hand without first asking me. When I was trying to relax and read my magazine while waiting for my hair color to set, the hairdresser came up and kept asking me to "counsel" him because he'd found out that I'm a psychologist. I would politely give him a short answer then pointedly return to my magazine, but he'll continue sitting uncomfortably close to me looking at me. It was most unnerving.

- I'd asked for a color lighter than the brown I already had, but yet walked out with a DARKER brown

- My haircut was rubbish. He didn't do anything - just a few snips and he was done (4 mins tops). The sides are not even and it's just a bad job all round

- I was charged for "medium length" hair when my hair is boy-short!!! ($52)

- My hairdresser (20+, bad 90s Ah Beng haircut) told me he was the "head stylist" and I was skeptical so at the end went to check the section with the name cards - EVERYONE is a "senior stylist"!!!

I'm astounded that this salon is still running. You will be better off at any other neighbourhood salon, really.

[MissGinger]

Ohhh luckily I googled before I went down, I saw the huge ST ads today!

[Rorschach]

Something in the news today:

http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%...06-256620.html

Was Singapore hairstylist with Nicole Kidman?

BY RACHEL CHAN

TAKE a look at these pictures.

The one on the far right shows Hollywood A-list actress Nicole Kidman standing beside Spanish director Alejandro Amenabar.

The other shows her in the same pose with Singapore hairstylist Jonal Chong.

Both look almost identical. In both pictures, the Australian actress is wearing the same black tube dress lined with vertical silver stripes. Amenabar and Mr Chong appear to share the same get-up of a black jacket over a blue shirt.

An online search reveals that two websites, namely bbc.co.uk and Hollywood.com, have the same Amenabar/Kidman shot.

Further checks show that it was taken on Aug 7, 2001, outside the Directors' Guild of America's screening auditorium in Los Angeles. The auditorium was screening the premiere of Amenabar's acclaimed psychological horror film, The Others, which starred Kidman as a mother who lived in a house with two children.

There are also other shots of Kidman and Amenabar at the same event posted online.

my paper met Mr Chong yesterday afternoon at his salon, Jonal Chong Hair Couture, in Orchard Central.

When asked about his picture with Kidman, Mr Chong, 48, said in Mandarin: "The picture was taken in 2002 at the premiere of Birth in London." Birth was a 2004 film directed by British director Jonathan Glazer and starred Kidman as a widow who was convinced that her dead husband had been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy.

Asked to explain the similarity between the two premiere photographs, he said: "I don't know... I can't explain it. I don't know why Nicole's head is facing the same direction. I don't know why the background looks similar."

When pressed further to offer a possible explanation for the striking resemblance between the photographs, he said that "it's wrong to cut and paste" and repeatedly muttered: "Who would want to smear my reputation?"

Asked if he has other pictures of himself and Kidman, he said: "I have many but I left them in London." He said he has a hair salon in London.

He said this is the only photo of him and Kidman which he brought home from London because "it showed me attending my first movie premiere with Nicole", he explained.

Mr Chong's business name card (above) also features the same Kidman photograph. It is printed with a handwritten message that says: "To Jonal Chong, Hair Couture, all the best, Nicole Kidman." The same message was also printed on a large poster of Kidman which was hanging in the salon yesterday.

He added that he would have gone to Los Angeles to style her hair for the Golden Globe Awards at The Beverly Hilton hotel on Jan 16, if not for the amount of business he has to handle for the upcoming Chinese New Year.

Mr Chong, who is also the managing director of his salon, was interviewed previously by my paper.

In an August 2009 article, he said he had been based in London for seven years and was Kidman's hairstylist from 2000 to 2005. He also said he styled hair for American actress Katherine Heigl and British actor Hugh Grant.

In the article, he also said that British actor Ewan McGregor contacted him to style his hair for Moulin Rouge's London premiere. It was there that Kidman reportedly hired him on the spot.

He told my paper yesterday that he took a five-day advanced course at Vidal Sassoon School in October in 1985. He returned to Singapore in 2005 for family matters. He also added that he continued to style Kidman's hair from 2006 to 2008 on an ad-hoc basis.

An online search shows that over the past decade, Mr Chong was a director in a pawn shop, Kwong Hin Pawn Shop.

He is also a director in three businesses, namely Jonal Chong Hair Couture, Jonal Chong International and Savoir Fair.

He was also featured prominently in a series of print advertisements for his salon last month and on Sunday.

rachchan@sph.com.sg

[hum_hum]

Wow... I'm speechless...

It's obvious this so-called stylist for celebs is the one who did the "cut and paste".

Why in the world would a Spanish director be THAT hungry for fame?

If this is true, this local guy might be in hot soup.

[oink24]

Check out ST today(7/1/11), HOME SECTION.

He's currently involved in CASE investigation.
Luckily i did read up this forum on his Hair couture..
i was so tempted by their promos ***..

Thank you all for posting and let other cozycot or consumers know bout this black shop !!

[Daisypond]

I went there a few months ago for a hair dye and I had a bad impression of this salon. I just knew if I feel a certain way about an establishment, I will not be the only one. Finally today I saw the nagative newspaper reports, so I came in here to check out the reviews. Beware! The low rates are just a ploy to get you there. I went there for the hair dye promotion. I was shown a book sample of colours which were not part of the promotion and I was not told. Somehow I suspected it, and asked them, and true enough, I had to pay $50 more if I want to use the L'Oreal brand. So I asked how about the promotion? The salon guy refused to take out the hair colour samples for the promotional brand, until I threatened to walk out. Then he reluctantly took it out.

[hum_hum]

Just stumbled onto this website while trying to find out more about this case.
Compare very closely, one photograph of him with Hugh Grant, and another with Katherine Heigl.
In both photographs, his facial lighting (especially where the light reflects off his forehead, tip of nose and left cheek), facial contours, tilt of the head, look exactly THE SAME.
It was as if someone took the same single shot of his face and photoshopped it in separate photographs with different celebrities.
There are already so many negative comments about his salon’s services.
It’s really pathetic to see how many lies a person can fabricate just to push himself to the fore.

http://www.asiaone.com/static/multim.../110106_jonal/

[es0teric]

More @ http://img140.imageshack.us/img140/6650/28934600.png

[reldyn]

seems like lots of shops at orchard central are shutting down. :/

i assume he doesn't have a shop now?

[momobay]

CASE should give Jonal Chong a massive fine and force him to close his salon for deceiving customers and misrepresentation! Granted that nobody would actually believe he is a hairstylist to Hollywood stars..He's more like a pitiful wannabe who's trying to be 'class' (uppercrust)..let me tell you how laughable the Hollywood pictures are at his Salon:
Even IF Jonal did go to the Golden Globes and had taken pictures with some stars (which we now KNOW he photoshopped his pock-marked face into the pics), the photos look damn crap. For example, the stars are looking at one camera direction and he is looking at another, or the picture is out-of-focus (who frames out-of-focus pics?!) and finally, who wants to look at his unattractive face (read: fugly) all over the salon?!
He's a completely self-obsessed, superficial and dishonest freak.

Just to share my experience at being totally ripped off at his salon:
I first went to Savoir Faire in 2008, and signed a package ($1800 for 12 sessions) after the first session as the stylist who cut and did the hair treatment for me did a great job..but thereafter the service just went downhill. The first time hair treatment was elaborate with a series of steps, but subsequently, all they used was the sort of hairmask you can buy from Ocean or Venus and do-it-yourself at home.
Everytime I went to the salon they'd hardsell products and packages, even though I'd already had that package. During one particular session, the stylist tried so hard for the entire 3 - 4 hrs to upsell other packages (together with damn Jonal), so just to shut them up I just signed up another $500 which I used for hair color. So annoying right! They were trying to sell a $6000 unlimited visit package with 6 mth validity..I wonder who the hell would be willing to pay upfront that sort of money !
What customers in this forum and other forums have describe are EXACTLY the sort of horrible service and quality you'd experience at Jonal Chong's salon. There were 2 stylists that did my hair who were good at haircuts but left the salon shortly after..I suppose Jonal constantly pressured them to sell products and packages to customers. Anyone having any decency or a conscience would be pricked. Jonal also asked me after I asked the whereabouts of my former stylist if the stylist spoke badly abt him to me..goes to show what kind of boss he is that he has to worry abt being bad-mouthed! The other stylists I was later assigned to had lousy cutting / blowing skills and/or black face and bad service which does not warrant the high prices customers have paid.
Anyway I'm glad I'm through with using the packages (I've decided to forego the last 2 'free' sessions), these were the worst ever retail decision I've made in my life! Everytime I went to the salon, I'd get all stressed and pissed off, how screwed is that?

I'm glad he's now infamous, afterall, he brought it upon himself!!