Kota Kinabalu-sions: The Kérastase trip

It was his eyes. They grabbed me at hello. There I was, on a Malaysian flight hurtling towards the unknown, scarfing down peanuts, flippantly thumbing the in-flight magazine. Next to me, Frankie Melendez of the Lucy Britanico salon was mumbling, "Ricky Martin…Aubrey Miles…Ricky!" in his sleep. I was surrounded by hairdressers. Then a page struck. The western tarsier! Wild-eyed and beguiling, with its little webby paws clutched around a tree trunk like a gremlin about to drown. It was ridiculously cute, if not a bit extraplanetary. Its head rotates a creepy 180 degrees, and its UFO eyes are larger than its stomach. I suppose accusing it of being takaw mata wouldn’t be inappropriate.

I now knew my mission in Borneo. To trawl its rainforests, tread its overgrown roots and traipse between its hanging vines in search of this crepuscular creature. I would photograph fireflies and document long-dormant beasts. I would heed the call of the wild in my specially brought resort/leisure wear. I would free the orangutan from the clutches of evil delicacies. Yes, that is what I would do.

The next day saw a bright new morning at the beautifully grand Nexus Karambunai resort. Sunlight stalked leafy fronds and sprinkled twinkles over dewy ponds – but alas we were all held indoors at conference. This was, after all, the reason we were here (actually, I was just a press minority, the conference was the reason why the 50+ salon-related people were here). I shut my ears to the sound of tiny sand crabs scuttling the surf and took pen to paper. Kérastase, the French hair products line, throws a yearly congress in exotic locales and invites owners from selected salons that carry Kérastase and offer Kérastase treatments. Kérastase happens to be a luxury brand that is not available other than from these salons, and so the theme of this year’s talks was "Let’s talk… Luxury."

And what about it? Luxury has become the commodity in these times of burgeoning markets. The number of salons increased by 35 percent in 2001-2002, and yet there was a marked decline in the usage of professional color services, which are really the heart and soul of the salon. Blame cheaper, better, home color kits, blame the economic slowdown. How can salons differentiate themselves competitively? The difference is in the levels of quality. Quality just doesn’t cut it anymore. Customer satisfaction is hardly enough – there are already too many quality, satisfactory salons, and not enough heads of hair wanting to have the living daylights bleached into them. Luxury should be the standard, and customer delight should be the goal.

Architect Ed Calma gave a talk on the importance of design in a salon’s image and showed slides of avant-garde Manhattan parlors that maximized space with ingenious minimalism and lots of cool white furnishings. Luxe, not loud; chic, maybe even cheap, but hardly shabby. Actually, Restaurant 12 is designed along these lines, and what do you know, 12 is one of Calma’s own babies. The other speech was given by 12’s other owner, restaurateur Elbert Cuenca. His was a practical lecture on impressing the customer’s experience through meticulous service. Don’t leave nasty hair clippings inside magazines. Don’t talk on the phone while giving a pedicure. Offer them gourmet coffee as well as sound grooming advice. Treat ‘em like royalty, he says, and aim to exceed expectations, because word-of-mouth is the salon business’ best and worst friend.

Having said all that, we then adjourned for a break only to be regrouped for a surprise game of "Amazing Race." Here my mental and physical abilities were strained to their maximum. Would I lead my team to victory? Would I hold them back from rightful glory? The latter was more the case as we were required to run from one post to the next, and the Nexus resort was really quite vast. I flailed about in my flip-flops, shamefully trailing behind fit older women and gay makeup artists. I didn’t want to sack race, I couldn’t do the soccer kick, and no way would I go on the treadmill run. But ah, I made up for my glaring lacks through the alcohol challenge and slurped that mother of a piña colada down. "Know thy strengths" is an apothegm always best used as an excuse in situations like these. We were headlining the race, but a fluke of the wind set us back to third.

Nevertheless, we went out and celebrated our "moral victory" that night at the resort’s Darlin’ Darlin’ pub where we unearthed a rather unearthly combo that performed everything from Abba to Aguilar’s Anak with one do-it-all synthesizer. Yes, even in this remote corner of disputed Malaysian territory, or in whichever foreign piss-sopped poolhouse you may find yourself stranded in for that matter, you know your head will always lift off its shrug to the taxi-music croonings of some Filipino cover band. Musical impersonators, our country’s next greatest export. This band called themselves 2 by 2 (indeed the squarest name I’ve ever heard) and was overjoyed at the sight of fellow Pinoy beer gardeners that they dedicated a whole set to Kérastase karaoke requests, yakking it up in Tagalog and ignoring the faint pleas of European honeymooners.

The next morning, I braved hangover hell and set my alarm early. I had signed up for the nature trail, and may I croak in the coldest circle of hell if I reneged on my own plans. The tangerine-eyed tarsier and burnt orange orangutan awaited in the lofty preserves of the Karambunai wildlife sanctuary. But the moment my foot hit the floor, my mind made up its own. I felt, sorely, the ambulatory pain of yesterday’s amazing chase, but I specifically felt the unfettered pain of a sprained ligament. That’s what you get for running with scissors, I mean slippers, the wisdom of the elders gloated gleefully at my unshod hoof.

Plan B. What else, shopping! I may have not seen my monkey friends, but I did meet some three other kindred spirits on this hairsome trip. The other three press members were all magazine beauty editors who, like me, stake out the local mall scene as soon as the plane touches down in a new country. Regulars at these Kérastase gigs, they embraced neophyte me, gave me a makeover and planned an escape shopping heist in downtown Kota Kinabalu, where Palm Square served as surrogate jungle. Preview’s Agoo Bengzon whisked us to Vincci’s shoe heaven – everything was down 70 percent and no one left with anything less than three new pairs. Sure, I was howling and hobbling around like some limp basket case, but at least I was hobbling in style.