Women and hairdressers.
Friday, 12 February 2010 13:25 Last Updated on Thursday, 19 August 2010 21:38
What is it about women and hair? Why do we trot along to the hairdressers time after time and put ourselves through the misery of paying, yet again, for a hairstyle we simply don’t like?
If you’re anything like me you’ll sit there looking into the mirror in front of you and the hairdresser behind you and say politely ‘yes, yes, that looks nice,' rather than tell the truth and say you hate it.
Should we blame ourselves or is it we place our much loved hair in the hands of people who are just not skilled enough to be given the name hairdresser?
Makeover programmes – you know the one’s where old, haggard frump enters and after £25,000 on teeth, skin and hair comes out looking literally 10 years younger. There’s the top stylists on hand to weave the most beautiful haircut, and the
Maybe I was just expecting too much from the girl trained at the local college one day a week. Or maybe at £25 I was simply three noughts shy of a decent makeover.
Once again though I made the fatal mistake of combining a new hairstyle with a hairdresser I’d never met. Fooled by the background credentials of Toni and Guy and Reds I felt safe but it didn’t take too long for the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up to alert me something was wrong. (Sadly they were chopped off before I got the message).
Armed with a photograph freshly printed off the Internet I drove to the hairdressers full of optimism and excitement. You know what it's like. You convince yourself that a new hairstyle will knock a few years off you and transform you and the dowdy clothes and makeup you normally wear into some celebrity goddess who just stepped out of 'Hello' magazine.
The wash went fine – you can’t really get that wrong, can you? And the cut started off hopeful. I thought if I kept the 'photo' on my knee in full view of the hairdresser it would remind her of the cut I wanted. It didn't quite work out that way. After 15 minutes of careful cutting my hairstyle was beginning to resemble a shorter version of what I went in with, which certainly wasn’t what I wanted to go out with.
When I half heartily mentioned that my hair didn't quite look like the style in the photograph she started snipping away again, then thinning it, then snipping it and so it went on. The excitement I felt on the way to the hairdressers had all but gone. ‘Oh no, not again’ began to come to mind. Should I say I don’t like it? Should I stop her cutting any more? I sat there in the chair trying to hold my nerve. Trying to look calm, trying to convince myself it would look different once dried.
Silly little thoughts began to enter my head ‘I’ll wash it again when I get home’ (and somehow make it look longer) or maybe ‘tuck it behind my ears’ and it won’t look so bad. Worse still I was thinking about the extra work I’d need to put in on facial exercises in order to get rid of the double chin and sagging jowls which were now completely and utterly exposed.
But once again, after more snips and thinning, a little bit straightening and enough wax to polish a whole car, I sat there looking into the mirror with the hairdresser behind me and said ‘yes, yes, that looks nice!’
18 Aug 2010 I feel for you my hairdresser is fine until she is going on holiday or revamping the house then her mind is not on my poor hair I come away with a hairstyle I do not want and several pounds less in the bank,on her return I have a sleek new hairstyle and happy cos she is now broke and concerned that I will not return if she gets it wrong. Sheila
Hi Sheila, sleek new hairstyle, sounds great. I had my hair done a few weeks ago and for the first time in years I looked in the mirror and thought 'yes, she finally got it right'. Only problem is I can't do a thing with it myself!!! Dawn