Pain in the butt, back, legs or feet? Check your spine.

Written by Shai Dhali

Recently I saw a doctor who assumed I was there about previous symptoms she’d worked on. I told her that they were gone. I had healed them myself.
She said, “You did?! How?”

Model: Jasmina Egeler, yoga instructor/ Photo: Shai Dhali

She was surprised because the symptoms in the lower half of my body had stumped her  Continue reading

Massage the kale!

By Shai Dhali

Hair colour & photo: Shai at Pome

This recipe is from Vancouver nutritionist Elizabeth Campbell, who massages thick dressing into a kale salad instead of tossing it.

Liz: “Have you ever massaged your kale?  It helps to soften it up for easier digestion and ensure that your sauce or dressing is getting into all those little grooves, for an all-over even flavour and taste satisfaction!” Continue reading

How this little mint prevents cavities

By Shai Dhali

This mint fights cavities

I was not born blessed with fortified teeth or perfect ph in my mouth: I got cavities even when I hadn’t eaten processed sugar for a year. So I tried brushing and flossing after I ate anythingbut last summer when I went for a dental check-up, the dentist found cavities again.

He also tagged two additional teeth to watch for next time and he assumed that I ate candy and drank soda pop but I told him, never. I snacked on dried fruit/nut balls and juiced fresh fruit and vegetables. The dentist was not impressed.

He said, “Nuts, dried fruit, juice: they’re all as bad as candy.” Continue reading

Liberated from commercial yoga

By Shai Dhali

I just want to stroll in, roll out my mat, hug friends, do yoga and then let the experience fade away. I don’t want it archived as a barcoded statistic.

photo: Shai Dhali

Up until last week, I owned a check-in pass to Vancouver’s largest corporation of yoga studios. The pass used to be one piece of plastic inked with a barcode but last week I cut the barcode in half, during a moment of calm resolution that I was done with commercially branded yoga. I didn’t go much there anyway and less so after a conversation at the front desk in 2011, which happened while a class in another room echoed the sound of the universe through “OM.” Continue reading

Books on how to dress better

By Shai Dhali

Excerpt from How to Have Style

I wrote in a previous post* that relying on people’s comments that your hair looks good is a faulty measure of looking your best. Now I’ve read the same about other people’s opinions about your clothing.There’s a conversation in the book “How to Have Style,”  between fashion designer Isaac Mizrahi and a casually dressed woman he is making-over (not pictured here).

Woman: “If someone tells me something looks good on me, then I wear it.”

Mizrahi: Sorry, but that attitude wasn’t [sic] doing much for you. Continue reading

Grey hair: Chic in a headband

hair, hairband and photo: Shai at Pome

I posted photos on the salon’s website of this 30-something woman who stopped dying her hair black. I also posted tips on how to adapt make-up and hairstyles for grey hair so that grey isn’t “granola” –this headband makes her hair look chic like she’s from the film era of the  The Artist in the late 1920′s/early 1930′s. Take a look at the photos of the awkward grow-out stages, too, at pome.ca

The headband is made at Pome and comes in various colours. Two for $12.

What I made at Pome today: braids, a bright wool hat & this photo

Hair & photo: Shai at Pome. The hat was made at Pome. The vintage coat is her own.

This lovely woman is a Pome website regular who came to the studio today just for a deep conditioning, but she loves wearing braided hairstyles as much as I like doing them…so we played and she modelled the hat I finished this morning. There are photos without the hat at www.pome.ca

The merino wool hat is $45 at Pome
A braided hairstyling appointment is $30 for a 30 minute appt..

Green juice

By Shai Dhali

My favourite juicing recipes are from a cookbook from Fresh restaurant in Toronto. The recipes in the book are just as good as the drinks in the restaurant: proportionally perfect in flavour, liquidity, colour and aftertaste.

Citrus/kale juice photo by Shai Dhali

The citrus/kale juice I make is light, sweet, tangy and refreshing. The recipe is in the Refresh cookbook.

Continue reading

Hand-dyed Swedish mittens

 

Hair colour, cut and photo: Shai at Pome.

“I really needed a haircut in Sweden but I waited… I wanted you to do it.”  -Kyla (who moved to Sweden and who is a very loyal client)

Coincidentally she came to Pome in a sweater that reminded me of some unique Swedish mittens I’d seen on the internet; made from 30-year-old, plant-dyed wool.

Alas, her sweater has the same pattern on it but it’s from Top Shop in England.
The heritage wool mittens are designed by a textile design student in Sweden, who is using the wool her mother and grandmother dyed in the 1980′s from herbs and plants they collected in the forest. I think her grandmother is knitting them. Continue reading

Juicing: good for hair but not teeth

By Shai Dhali

Spiced-up orange, kale juice. Recipe below.

Juicing is my sweets substitute
Sometimes I juice vegetables and fruit as a substitute for sweet treats because juiced vegetables are so satisfyingly sweet that afterwards my taste buds don’t want to touch any chocolate or sugar (processed or natural). My dentist doesn’t think my choice is any wiser and I’ll tell you why later.

I juiced for the sake of my thinning hair
I first started juicing apples, carrots, ginger, and beets for the sake of my hair; when 4 years ago I noticed my thick bangs were wisps of their former glory and I finally paid attention to the alarming number of hair strands scattered all over my home. Continue reading

Inspire yourself

Faiz's haircut and photo: Shai at Pome

By Shai Dhali

Faiz is one of the founders of Innerverse that hosts small, affordable events for awakening consciousness. The next one on Jan. 13th is about how to dump karmic baggage.

Faiz and Elizabeth, the founders of Innerverse: “The name reminds us of the vast timeless universe we believe exists inside each one of us, and that everything we seek externally can actually be found inside us.

“Each of us has an ‘inner verse’ – a unique vibration that we are here to tune in and resonate out into the world.” Continue reading

Shopping: lipstick for brown skin

Written by Shai, owner of Pome hair studio in Vancouver.

Hair: Shai at Pome. Makeup:a Bobbi Brown rep,Holt Renfrew. Photographer: Marlis Funk

Recently a career coach booked an appointment with me to style her hair for a photo shoot. (Styling hair is $30 for up to 30 minutes.) She wanted a style that was soft around her face with a slightly undone bun in the back, which I did before her make-up appointment. So I didn’t see her final look until I saw her portrait and then I just had to know about the lip colour.

She replied, “The lipstick is by Continue reading

Resume Analysis with a pro for free

By Shai Dhali

Sabrina Ali, career coach. Hair: Shai at Pome/ Photo: Marlis Funk

Are you frustrated with your resume? Take heart; there’s a contest to get your resume checked by a resume pro and her analysis promises to be anything but dry.

From her website:
“Are you a human being? Most people on their resume present a human doing: Continue reading

A novel’s last line


“All I felt was that life had finally floated down the river and reached me.”

-The last line of The Atlas of Impossible Being
by Anuradha Roy

Water imagery is cinematic in this novel. Earlier in the story, a pregnant woman’s water breaks during a monsoon storm:
“A leaf floated past the legs of the armchair….
“Still here, you fool? How do you think the baby will come if you just stand here?  Go and get Jonaki’s mother!”
“But the river,” the boy croaked. “It’s broken its banks. If I step out the water is up to my neck.”

This book unfolded like a film.

Best comment this week

I love hearing clients tell me what happens to my haircuts after they leave the salon:

face-to-face comment

View the slideshow of Shai’s haircuts on men
“His haircut looks good when he’s styled it, when he’s just woken up and when he’s done nothing to it. I don’t know how you do it. The only problem is that when he talks to me, I stare at his hair and he gets annoyed that I’m not paying attention to what he’s saying.” -Anastasia
 

Hair for an acting role

Haircut by Shai at Pome/ styled by film crew. Chad Willet as hair obsessed Max in the film Everything and Everyone.

Pome’s motto is “haircuts that make you look like  yourself”. However, some people need hairstyles that makes them look like someone else, like this guy:
A straight guy texted me that after his haircut, a man on the skytrain hit on him.
Mission accomplished. He’s an actor about to play a gay man in a film. -posted on Facebook, March 25, 2011.

Continue reading

The actors next door

Mitch and Murray Productions is rehearsing for 50 Words.

The other day the producer from Mitch & Murray, a professional theatre company next door to Pome hair studio, popped his head in the door to ask me if they were too loud rehearsing for “50 Words,” –a play with marital shouting involving what sounded like thrown furniture.

“Yes,” I shrugged, “but without the acting studio this would be just another boring office building.”