Dongseongno salon collarbone bob for thick wavy hair: With Me Hair

• ✅ Hours: Tue–Sun 10:00–21:00
• ✅ Priority booking system (walk-ins possible)
• ✅ No parking, no elevator ❌

Why I chose With Me Hair in Dongseongno, Daegu

I went to With Me Hair in Dongseongno, Daegu, to cut off my heavy, overgrown hair. With the autumn breeze picking up and my baby's first birthday party behind me — no more updos needed — it was finally time to lighten things up.

My hair is thick and doesn't take a perm well, so while I wanted an easy-to-manage C-curl, I honestly wasn't sure it was even possible. I walked into the salon with my heart pounding a little.

Where With Me Hair is and what the salon is like

With Me Hair sits right behind Shin Dermatology, one of the most famous dermatology clinics in Daegu, so it was super easy to find. Address: 3rd floor, 111 Dongseongno 4-gil, Jung-gu, Daegu.

The salon isn't huge, but the layout is clean enough that you never bump into other customers.

Of course there's a water dispenser, plus a nice variety of teas! There's even a sink inside the salon so you can wash your hands if you feel like it.

Before: thick hair with a natural wave

Here's my before shot. A bit of natural curl made my hair go every which way, so there's no way I could ever wear it down as is. I love collarbone-length hair, so I asked for it to be cut to that length.

Even with just the cut, my hair already felt so much lighter.

The manager (not the director) took one look and said, "How does anyone have this much hair?" haha. Since my hair gets frizzy, I asked them to thin out the texture as much as possible. I mentioned that I'd become a salon nomad after being disappointed at the place I'd gone to for 8 years — long story short, a stylist trainee botched a perm and gave me mismatched curls on each side —

and the director said that a lot of salons in Dongseongno have been skipping the basics lately, which has left a lot of customers disappointed. She said she just sticks to the fundamentals, and clients keep coming back to thank her for it.

From the layered bob to recovery straightening and an iron perm

I asked for side-swept bangs too, and she trimmed them just slightly. When I said I wanted a layered cut with roughly a C-curl finish, she made the call to combine recovery straightening with an iron perm — solving both my poofy hair problem and my need for something low-maintenance in one go.

I'd had an iron perm once before and remembered it taking forever and a lot of hands-on work, so I was a little worried whether the director would be okay with it — but her hands were incredibly fast. Her own words: fast hands equals fast judgment, and honestly, it really seemed true.

Tea and snacks to keep me from getting bored in the meantime. I love Margaret biscuits, and I was a little sad I couldn't eat two since I was on Switch-On (an appetite-suppressant medication). I noticed a ton of hair extensions hanging on the wall and asked about it — turns out she does a lot of hair extension work too.

With 17 solid years of experience, the director said matching hair extension color and applying them painlessly is a real skill she's confident in. She mentioned that some places intentionally skip proper cutting when doing extensions just to charge more, and she said she really hates that kind of dishonest practice.

Would the curl even hold in thick hair?

The director's hands at this Dongseongno salon were so fast that even her stopwatch-pressing speed was fast, haha.

When I said I was worried the curl wouldn't hold, she rolled a couple of test strands and out came these perfectly springy curls — she cheered me on, saying "With hair that takes curl this well, what's the problem?" haha.

The third product from the middle is the treatment applied to my hair. She said that's what helped the curl come out so well.

Even just after the rollers came out, the roots at the front already had life to them. It looked promising, and I got a little excited.

The flat iron and neutralizing steps

Now the flat iron work. She smoothed out the top section first, then used a round barrel to add curl at the bottom and volume at the roots.

After the flat iron work, I loved it so much I wanted to just go home like that, haha. But the director put the brakes on my premature excitement, saying, "It won't stay this tight — once you wash it, it'll loosen up."

Time to apply the neutralizer and go wash it out. Around the face she used a cream neutralizer so it wouldn't drip, and on the lower curls she used a liquid neutralizer so the curl wouldn't sag.

The shampoo chair! With uncomfortable chairs you never know how far back to lean, but the director told me not to overthink it — just lie all the way back, it's designed to be comfortable. And it really was, haha.

A 4-hour service finished in 2 hours

Back to drying. Not sped up 2x, haha — this is just the actual speed she works at. I usually block out at least 4 hours for straightening or a perm, and this was done in 2.

But she still didn't skip small details, like the wispy face-framing strands meant to look pretty when tied up. And now — the finished result! Ta-da!

Hair that looks great even when just tousled and air-dried!

Looking in the mirror again, I'm really happy with it. Between the director's fast hands and her upbeat energy, I feel like this is a place I'll be coming back to!