Manila's best-kept beauty secret

There’s a new beauty salon in town called Shunji Matsuo that is so good yet so secret, only a few discerning people know about it.

Who knows about it? Well, there is Imee Marcos, for one, a regular in this Japanese salon chain that is so established in Singapore where Imee lived for years before finally settling back home. Then there are the salon’s current patrons — career women, socialites and young people (including fashion models and DJs) who realize that the beauty business is one of the fields that the Japanese seriously excel in.

Shunji Matsuo is the celebrated Japanese hairstylist from Osaka who found fame in New York hairstyling for personalities like Michelle Pfeiffer, Christie Brinkley, Uma Thurman and Madonna, and doing shoots for Versace, Dior, Calvin Klein and Donna Karan. His mentor was the iconic Suga Yusuke, better known as Jackie Kennedy’s hairdresser, and a sensation in New York’s ’70s and ’80s celebrity scene.

Beneath all the celebrity glam, Shunji Matsuo is a no-nonsense professional who makes sure all the techniques in the hair industry are perfected by anyone who works in his salons. He has three salons in Singapore, two in Malaysia, one opening soon in Vietnam and one in the Philippines.

Matsuo’s Philippine salon staff is headed by William Wong, a hip hair wizard who learned all the tricks from Matsuo while working for his salons in Singapore and Indonesia for the past seven years.

“One thing Matsuo taught me is that a true hairstylist has to know everything, from cutting to perming to coloring to hairstyling, and do these yourself. As a hairstylist, you must do three things: see the customer, feel the customer, and listen to the customer,” says Wong.

This Matsuo disciple has been in the Philippines only seven months, but already he has gained a faithful following. Wong says that he enjoys beautifying Filipinos, both men and women, who appreciate the Japanese salon’s techniques. “Filipinos are a beautiful people, and they are very progressive-minded.”

Filipino hair, he observes, generally looks good with brown tints. “I notice that too much rebonding is done here, when there should be more natural movement when it comes to modern hairstyling. For 2009, Wong sees the short Twiggy hairstyle becoming in vogue, but tweaked with a modern vibe. “There may be bangs, or the length may be longer. For young men, the hip-hop (crowd) may go for short hair, though I prefer long hair for young men.”

Shunji Matsuo himself came to the Philippines last May to personally inaugurate this salon, so inconspicuously located in an all-white, modest, but modern building at 17 West Capitol Drive in Pasig, just a few steps across Cafe Juanita, a resto that has quietly become the favorite of Manila’s discerning food lovers.

Like Cafe Juanita, the Shunji Matsuo Salon is charmingly decorated with Asian art and artifacts. Both the resto and the salon eschew advertising hype; rather, they thrive on word-of-mouth testimonials from patrons. So that probably gives you an idea as to who owns both.

He is Dr. Boy Vasquez, one of Manila’s most well-loved personalities, adored by the three generations of mothers and babies he attended to in the delivery room during the past 37 years. Fresh from the UST College of Medicine (where schoolmate Sylvia Carrion-Domingo fondly remembers Boy as the “crush ng bayan”), he was the first male resident of Dr. Constantino Manahan. Dr Vasquez was a fave ob-gyn of the social set until one day, three years ago, he decided to retire his white doctor’s uniform to pursue his other passions.

For him, life is a series of never-ending educational pursuits, so Dr. Vasquez enrolled in art classes to satisfy the art collector in him. Then he took up cooking lessons to add more flavor to the aspiring chef and restaurateur in him, making Cafe Juanita the resto that would immortalize his mother’s recipes, one of Manila’s top-rated eateries. Despite its unpretentious location, it is patronized by long queues of food lovers, from office workers to stock-brokers to politicians.

His original target market was the average Filipino looking for good food at P30 per dish. As a doctor, he diagnosed the marginalized Filipinos as lacking in self-esteem. “My dream was to lift such low esteem. For me, yan ang gamot sa Pilipinas. I wanted more Pinoys to enjoy excellent food at affordable prices.” Little did he realize that even congressmen would line up to join the motley crowd at Cafe Juanita, which now offers a P475 buffet for Sunday lunch offering 21 dishes “na hindi pang-buffet ang lasa.” Beside it, he had to open an annex, the Augusto Carinderia, which still offers P30 dishes, to accommodate everyone, including congressmen who can’t wait for a seat at Cafe Juanita.

Next, Dr. Vasquez enrolled in a six-month course in Salon Management at the University of the Philippines. He also studied techniques at L’Oreal and Wella. Why? While on a trip to Singapore, Dr. Vasquez tried the Shunji Matsuo Salon in Singapore and thoroughly admired the salon’s techniques as well as the hair master himself. He could open a franchised salon in the Philippines. His next dream was to make Filipinos beautiful.

“I waited for a sign before I could decide to open this salon,” says Dr. Vasquez. The sign came when Imee Marcos heard about his plan and said, “Yes, Shunji Matsuo is good. I used to go to this salon when I lived in Singapore.”

So there. That’s the story behind Manila’s best-kept beauty secret. Oops, now it’s not so secret anymore.

After all, good things — such as excellent food at low prices, and Japanese hairstyling expertise right here in Manila — are meant to be shared.

* * *

Shunji Matsuo Salon is located at 17 West Capitol Drive, Kapitolyo, Pasig. For inquiries and appointments, call 631-9424.

Cafe Juanita is located at 2 United St. corner West Capitol Drive, Kapitolyo, Pasig. Call 632-0357 or 710-1562 for reservations or catering.