Hair Salons
Tucked into the McKim Way plaza off Cambie Road, this is a phone-to-book salon rather than a walk-in shop. Cut, color and perm work for a largely Chinese-speaking local clientele, with plenty of surface parking out front.
Phone bookings are the norm at the plaza salons around Cambie Road, and that catches out people used to chains with a queue and a screen on the wall. Treat the call as the moment to ask everything: what the service you want actually involves, how long it takes, and when it can be fitted in. Color and perm work varies enormously in both time and cost depending on the hair in question, so nobody can quote honestly without seeing it first.
McKim Way runs behind Cambie Road in West Cambie, in the belt of low plazas and light industrial units between the Golden Village and the airport approach. It is not pretty and it is very functional. These plazas hold a huge amount of Richmond's actual service economy: salons, clinics, driving schools, accountants and tutoring centers, all in numbered units around a shared surface lot. Finding the right door is half the exercise. Look for the unit number before you look for a sign.
Cuts, color and perm work are the staples of this part of the trade, and competition along Cambie and McKim is dense enough that most shops here live on repeat customers rather than passing traffic. A good deal of the business is conducted in Cantonese or Mandarin, which is ordinary for this part of Richmond and worth knowing in advance only because it makes a first phone call go more smoothly. The area is busiest at weekends and quietest mid-week, when appointments are easier to place at short notice.
In the West Cambie neighbourhood of Richmond.
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Other hair salons and nearby businesses in the Richmond directory.
Busy second-floor salon inside Aberdeen Centre with thousands of reviews behind it. Strong on Asian hair texture, precision cuts and bleach work, and easy to pair with a mall trip since you are already parked underneath.
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The Aberdeen Centre branch of a Vancouver-area salon group, open seven days a week from late morning to early evening. Cutting, coloring and styling for a mostly Cantonese- and Mandarin-speaking clientele, with walk-in timing that suits mall hours.
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Third-floor Aberdeen Square salon run in the Japanese style, where the same shop does your haircut and your lashes. Women's cuts start around $68 and men's around $63, with keratin lash lifts and flat lash extension sets also on the menu.
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Korean salon on the third floor of Aberdeen Square, open daily from late morning to early evening. Go here for Korean perms, magic straightening and cut-and-color work; staff speak Korean, and the mall parking makes it painless.
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Japanese-style salon in the newer Capstan Way towers, best known locally for its head spa treatments alongside standard cut, color and straightening packages. Expect long combined appointments rather than a quick in-and-out trim.
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A small No. 3 Road salon built around color work, from single-process tints to correction jobs people bring in from elsewhere. Appointments also include scalp massage and deep conditioning, so a color visit runs long rather than rushed.
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