In the chair
It's that time of the month again. And if you are like me, you're dreading it. Vomit rises in the throat, nausea bubbles in the stomach, the heart pounds. What will I end up looking like, emerging from that palace of poodling: the hairdressers?
My monthly visit to the grooming house has never been enjoyable. Some abnormal beings find it 'relaxing', 'soothing' and feel as though they are being 'pampered'. How wrong can they be? For me, sitting facing myself, grimacing as I watch my hair, bit by bit, falling to the floor, is wholly torturous. My false grin surely informs the hairdresser of my complete lack of trust in her (oh, come on ladies, what sane person allows their hair to be cut by a member of the male species?), thus my hair ends up looking like it was cut to raise money for charity.
And then there's the mindless chitchat. I couldn't really care less if there has been a rift amongst the staff, or if Jackie has just left her husband. And what is it about Oxford that she doesn't like? As soon as she asks me the dreaded question, "So, what do you do then?", to which I answer, "I'm a student", I know that I may very well end up looking like Richard O'Brien when I leave the place.
"Ooooo... where?" she inevitably asks. "Um...." How many times have I contemplated lying? "Oxford".
"Right," she answers, and with a big snip which digs into the back of my neck, that's the end of that.
If she does venture further and ask me, feigning an interest, what I study, even leaving out 'linguistics' and just uttering 'German' brings a look of sickness to her face, and makes me instantly regret admitting my shame.
Why does it have to be like this? I'm not saying that I'll ever enjoy going to the hairdressers, but why does where I study, what I study and sometimes even where I live influence the way my hair is cut? Surely this is an act of complete madness? And if I try to keep schtum she thinks I'm either socially inept or deaf, and she puts the hairdryer on full blast and whispers something malicious to her 'fellow stylist-in-crime' about my seeming 'lack of confidence', or something equally ridiculous.
Hairdressing has always been tarred with the 'Tracy' brush. Helen Adams, the runner-up in this year's Big Brother, hardly challenged that stereotype. The images of loud-mouthed peroxides chewing gum over the wash-basin and camp Dales asking for extra shampoo are still in existence. The receptionist who tries and fails to sound posh, answering the phone with the sing-song "Curl up and Dye, Sharon speaking, hope you're having a nice day, how may I help you?" are ubiquitous - whether 'real' hairdressers claim things have changed or not. It is, therefore, the fault of hairdressing itself, when people claim it isn't an art.
If hairdressers adopted a more positive attitude and demonstrated more pride in their work, then surely we would be loath to stereotype them and dub them as head-lice loving, erstwhile members of society. Hairdressing should be an art. Even if it is sheer hell and torturous for some misanthropists like myself.
24th Jan 2002