MANILA, Philippines - How does one become a cool girl? Attempting to break down the formula — if any — one soon finds such efforts are futile because there really is none. Cool girls can be models and actresses just as they can be entrepreneurs and designers, from Paris Hilton, Mischa Barton (each with their own heydays) and Monique Lhuillier to our very own Isabelle Daza, Martine Cajucom and Tracianne Estrada. At a glance, we can speculate what they have in common, and what we can tell you is that their hair — that insouciant, easy-breezy wave — is by Bacolod-born, New Jersey-raised and New York- and Los Angeles-trained hairstylist Suyen Salazar. (She cuts men’s hair, too: she’s responsible for BJ Pascual’s latest tuft.)
As most Manila hairstylists laboriously perfect shampoo commercial hair, Salazar opens up a market to fill a need that not many girls knew they had: to look absolutely beautiful while looking like they didn’t try so hard. She was her first client, cutting her own hair as a child because stylists couldn’t get it right. Her aunt’s hairbrush company Creative Hair Tools made her realize hairstyling could be a viable career as she met hairstylists in trade shows until she was 16. Fresh out of graduating from Arrojo Cosmetology School in New York, she assisted Louis Licari (now Licari Cutler Salon at Fifth Avenue, New York City) but she became restless.
YSTYLE: Let’s go back to the beginning. At what point did your career take off?
SUYEN SALAZAR: Promotional growth in a salon is very slow, it’s usually when a stylist quits and that’s when an assistant can take their chair. My whole life turned upside-down when celebrity stylist DM, Miley Cyrus’s hair stylist back then, came into the salon and offered me a job to assist him for exposure. We did weddings together for three years, traveling to Miami for a day or a weekend. I was deciding whether to stay with someone that I was growing with but I wasn’t getting paid. I decided to venture out on my own as a freelance hairstylist. I had so many referrals from clients in New York to celebrity clients when I moved to LA for one year.
How did you break into the Manila scene, with an it-girl clientele at that?
I moved to LA for a long-distance relationship, we broke up, and I didn’t want to live in LA anymore. I was going to go back to New York and I came to the Philippines for a vacation. I met Isabelle Daza at a launch my friend took me to. She got me to do her hair, I gave her the wave, and she fell in love with it. She was like, “Girl, you gotta move here.” I would say, “Yeah, I’d stay if there was work.” Belle really pushed me onto all her celebrity friends. I have a lot to be thankful for because of her. She had a birthday dinner celebration in February and she invited me and her friends — Solenn Heussaff, Anne Curtis Smith, Jessica Wilson and Martine Cajucom were all there — and she had me cut their hair in the middle of the dinner (laughs).
You’ve become the go-to for textured waves. How did you develop your style?
A lot of my clients in LA and California, they were never into the done look, so I had to learn it. Everybody wanted to look pretty but they just wanted to look like they didn’t just come out of the salon and tried so hard. It was hard for me to figure out how to not try so much with hair.
Why do you think the waves — yours in particular — are so popular?
The waves literally suit anyone you put it on as long as you do it the right way. What I always hear from people in the Philippines is that they’re always asking for waves but it never comes out right. There are so many factors. You have to curl your hair in alternate directions. You have to leave the ends of the hair out so it has a more casual feel. Little things can make it look more natural. I’m not sure if it has to do with trainings in salons here. Everyone knows how to make a curl but it’s hard for people to make a wave. I’ve gotten bad feedback, “Is that all you know?” When I came here, people got excited ‘cause no one could do it properly and I’m happy to give it to whoever asks for it, but I can do other things. I know how to straighten hair, braid (laughs). I love my waves but now I’m figuring out what’s next. People will get bored of it eventually.
Any styling tips?
Hair is the best when it’s second day. It’s hard for me to go a day without showering so my favorite product is called IGK Down & Out Dirty Spray. You can get a lot of hold from sea salt spray and Dirty Spray alone. When I style people, I tell them to literally come in with their hair dirty. I’ll just dry shampoo it. For cuts, I only use scissors. I do dry cuts of hair at its natural state, so people can wake up looking like that every day. Styling should just be a secondary thing to make everything come together.
Working from New York to LA and now Manila, what’s been the most challenging change for you?
I wish more people here were more open to creativity. I love working with Belle, Anne, Solenn and Martine ‘cause they don’t ask for the traditional hair that looks like a wig. Fake bangs (it’s all clip-on extensions; I have all their bangs in my bag.), braids — I love that ‘cause I think we should be experimenting with different types of beauty. With the other celebrities, management has a lot of creative control. I think there are still a lot of Filipinos who can be stuck with what they know. Come out of your comfort zone and do something new.
It’s only been three months and work’s been non-stop for you. Will you be in Manila for good?
I’ll still go back to New York every now and then. I feel like I have worked so much to establish my career there and I still have clients there. I can go back to replenish my kit and return here. I want to change how the billboards look. When you’re going down the highway and you look at them, every time I come back for a vacation, it’s still the same, just different models. Creative people just have to unite and stick up for what they believe in.
Photos by RALPH MENDOZA
Makeup by LEI PONCE of MAKE UP FOR EVER