I took yet another plunge and rebonded my hair yesterday. Boy am I ever so relieved to iron those defiant waves back to stick-straight submission! See that, waves? Thou shalt not exist on Chanel's head unless you want to soak in chemicals and ironed like common laundry!

Unfortunately, the salon I frequent recently moved to Millenia Walk. Thank goodness I called them up to enquire about the price, because they would've charged me 300+ without batting an eye. Sodding daylight robbery, I tell you. I'd rather spend those 300 bucks on a new camera (eyeing a canon camera) instead of my hair, however argably important my hair is.

I then went about Marine Parade, trying to find a decent price for my rebonding job. The best price for the L'Oreal extenso one was $170, cut included. No, wait, that was second-best, but I had already booked an appointment there. And the salon staff seemed friendly and honest enough, so I can't very well back out without feeling guilty. Damn. The best price was $140, cut and treatment included at a place called cut and curl.

I spent the next half an hour rationalising that since the charge is too cheap, and the product(s0 themselves are expensive, and adding on utility expenses as well as labour, there is no possible way they would charge peanuts and expect to survive. It's business. They've been operating there for about 5 years, so if they offer such cheap packages, either the product itself is defective or they use normal straightening cream and try to bluff impressionable young people like me who, upon flipping the pages of a glossy Seventeen magazine, suddenly become convinced that wearing expensive perfume to prom is a MUST. There. Rationalisation completed. Guilt alleviated. Wallet now sporting a very large laceration and a jagged wound.

Anyway the whole point of this leading-in story which is much less interesting than how I envisioned it in my head is that I paid bloody $170 for my rebonding job, and it damn well better be well-maintained and awesome. I walked out of the salon, absolutely happy with my straight hair and thinking that, yep, three days will melt away. And the new moon, like a silver bow -

Yes, that was from Midsummer Night's Dream. A totally random and shameless interjection meant to prove that I did study for the Literature exam. Where was I?

Oh, right. The whole lalaland bombz thing, wherein I thought things will go smoothly. Nuh-uh. With my luck, everything goes pear-shaped. Shit I loathe my luck, I wish I could tear it out like a leathery skin and cast it away, preferably into a marine trench where a hapless shark can eat it and become shark's fin soup. No, no, not a shark, sharks are endangered already. What about cancer? Yeah. Cancer can eat my bad luck up and die and this animal disease will no longer be able to claim someone's aunt's life.

It was only Day One after rebonding, and my mum already noticed my oily hair. Ugh. Why can't my hair oils be evenly distributed along the entirety of my mane? I reckon I'll be able to save on frizz-taming serums, leave-in conditiners, treatment masks, conditioners, salon shampoos; the whole gamut and spend the money, instead, on...on... Holy crap I just realised that I spend the most on my hair. On a string of dead cells coated with keratin. My life is so fulfilling. My money is sooo well spent. Can't you feel the sarcasm oozing off every word like snot?

Yeah, my similies definitely need some work.

Since it's only Day One, with two days of oiliness to go, I figured I can't keep sticking to the MyNew-Haircare-Product-Is-Too-Rich excuse. I can't go with the But-I-washed-my-hair-I-just-exercised-a-lot excuse either, because that is a complete bald-faced and blatant lie, since my mum very well knows I haven't exercised a day in my life since the conception of Miss PC and Mr Internet, as well as the very gender-confused Novel.

Thankfully, Mr Google has a solution. Introducing....dry shampoo!

I know. I wasn't familiar with dry shampoo beforehand either, due to preconceived notions of shampoos being all liquid and wash-off, preferably sudsing with loads of lather, zankyou. Heck, I didn't even know it existed until last year, when I was worried of my shampoo being too harsh and stripping the natural oils away. Excessive vanity, thy name is Chanel.

Obviously, ever since the Egg Hair Mask Disaster of 2008, the discovery was met with an appropriate volume of disbelief as well as scorn. Ha, dry shampoo? As if! You're not gonna take advantage of a poor wide-eyed, albeit pimply, teenager's trust and turn her lovely tresses into gladiator spikes! Or dandruff! Or hair sludge (Is that possible? If you kow, don't answer that, please. Some things are better left unknown.) Or something of equal horrendous, disastrous, catastrophic, cataclysmic proportions and magnitude!

Well, there is that, those risks...but I was deperate to escape detection since I wasn't supposed to rebond my hair (and amazingly, my parents didn't notice. I had a perfectly good explantion prepared, which includes gesticulation as well as some rather far-fetched theories on the combined abilities of a simple hair dryer and a comb producing straight locks. Rebond? Moi? Non, non. It's mind over matter [herein I insert a charming smile and try to distract them with my green painted nails. Don't arch your eyebrow. I think green is a perfectly respectable colour for nails]).

Oh well. At least I don't have to go out and purchase a bottle - cornmeal (whatever that is), starch, and baby powder will do very well. It's easily obtainable...of no cost...Hm.

At least the hugeass bottle of Johnsons and Johnsons languishing at the back of my closet will get its one silver moment of glory. I'm doing a good deed. Yes, I'm getting pretty adept at lying to myself and rationalising, I know. It's an ability magically acquired during O level year.

The powder is innocent. Is innocuous, sitting calmly in my palm like tufts of icing sugar. I took a breath, squeezed my eyes shut, and hoped for the best while sprinkling the powder liberally over a small section of my fringe. I figured that this way, I can easily do damage control. If it works, I try it out the next day, yippee for non-detection and sayonara head that looks like a BP oil spill. If it doesn't...well, a rather thick fashion magazine told me that grey, apprently, is an 'in' colour as a dye, because it is 'chic', 'unique' (a maybe-euphemism for 'downright awful', right up there with 'repulsive', 'repugnant' and 'odious-but-I'm-too-polite-to-say-so') and...current? I forget the exact words, but I do remember the word 'chic'. Lady Gaga dyed her hair grey. Lady Gaga is considered to influence the fashion industry, and is fashionable, nevermind the numerous tabloids who dismiss her style as kooky or plain weird. So, grey is good. Grey is not so bad. Grey is - HOLY CRAP IT WORKED!

Within seconds the powder separated the clumped-together hair and the hair is dry and smooth once more, feeling clean, although albeit discoloured (i.e. grey). It all falls out better than I could hope for! (Cue fireworks and celebratory chocolate.)

Alright, ladies. So now you know what to do during those three tortuous days of being unable to wash your hair even though your hair is repulsingly oily! Broken down into FOUR easy steps:

1.Simply dump 2-3 tablespoons of your powder of choice (I used baby powder, Google says alternatives include salt [but salt tends to cling to extremely oily hair, so I don't recommend that], cornmeal, oat, flour... ), then massage it into your scalp (and into oily parts of hair, if necessary. I did that to my fringe, and it worked out fine).

2.Comb it through the oily parts, and add more if needed (to make things easier, just add until you can separate individual strands from a clump of oily hair).

3. Afterwards, let it set for about 5-10 minutes. This is to let the powder absorb the oil.

4.Then, turn your head upside down and brush your hair out. Try doing it over a sink, because it can get a little messy. If you wish to be quick, though, you can use a hair dryer to blow the powder away. I can't say for sure when everything is brushed away, but I think if you just keep brushing for two to three minutes, everything will be more or less gone. Don't worry about it building up in your hair -- it's no different from the leave-on conditiners we all put. Just make sure that the grey is no longer visible.

Admittedly, I was initially apprehensive about the powder making me look like I had a case of chronic dandruff, but I'm happy to report that it didn't happen. It worked wonderfully, leaving that section of hair feeling clean and dry, no longer sticking together in clumps like oily hair. It's cheap, good, and excellent for those days when you're too busy to wash your hair, or if your hair is extremely oily and washing once a day just does not suffice. It's not recommended to wash your hair twice a day anyway, since shampoos strip your hair of oils, making it dry and brittle. Trust me on this.

A word of caution, though (and a little common sense) - Don't replace the normal (liquid) shampoo with dry shampoo. Well, I guess you can if you want to, but there's always the hygiene preference factor. Nothing quite beats lather and smelling nice and fresh like you preferred brand of shampoo. I heard that during confinement some expecting mothers use the dry shampoo for about one week and it worked out fine, so I guess the maximum length of time you can use it is one week? No idea, but it sounds quite...unsatisfactory.

Moral of story: Dry shampoo works. It is effective, and its effects are similar to that of shampoo, minus the oil-stripping. It is definitely faster than shampooing and conditioning, a major plus if you're rushing for time. But at the end of the day, I still love my normal L'Oreal shampoo more.