Free styling

2008-09-26 13:37

Colleen Figg

I went to the hairdresser two weekends back. I only go when I am starting to look like the wild woman of Borneo, with hair all over the place, highlights growing out and fringe obscuring vision quite significantly. I.e. when I look like the proverbial dog.

This equates to roughly once every three months and every time I arrive with my appallingly unstylish hairstyle the hairdresser tut-tuts and clucks worriedly over me, wondering aloud why on earth it's been so long since she saw me.

The truth is I find it a terrible and complete waste of time having my hair done; with people fussing over me, washing my hair, wrapping bits in foil, shoving me under heat, inspecting me every now and then like a side of beef to see if I'm 'done' yet.

I also hate the way you must lie in spread-eagled lack of dignity at the basins where they wash your hair. A sadist designed those basins, and those chairs.

You get the most awful ache in your neck and then you have people roughly washing your hair and massaging your scalp until you want to scream. They also insist on putting conditioner on and if I use conditioner once every six months it is a lot.

The water is always too hot or too cold. I land up enduring the ordeal by gritting my teeth, literally, so I come away with aching neck and jaw and flat oily hair from the conditioner.

Then someone gets to work on you with a comb and yanks and tugs after drying your hair so roughly you've got blasted great knots in it and you sit there going *wince* *wince* and wanting to knock their blocks off. (I have an extremely sensitive scalp; if you want me to go mad, pull my hair. I promise the results will be startling and not in any way you could possibly like!).

Then you are turned over to the stylist herself who wants to know if you want to "be adventurous" this month and "do something different" which usually involves you coming out looking like an electrified Afghan hound by the time they've been "creative" on your damned scalp.

I always insist on going with what's worked before and that takes about an hour of my precious Saturday time.

Then they want to blow-dry your hair and I never blow-dry mine, ever. I always say I just want colour and cut, and am ready to zoot out of the shop the moment the foils come off, literally. But no. I must sit in the chair again while the stylist mucks about with a blow-dryer which makes me boil and fluffs up my hair so I look like Ivana Trump which doesn't suit my personality at all.

No matter how many months I've been going there, they always blow-dry my hair in the wrong direction, putting my path on the left when it should be on the right. All hairdressers I have ever been to do this.

Finally I am forced to admire their handiwork in the mirror they hold up behind me and I mumble and smile accordingly, and then I just about race out of there stopping only to part with vicious sums of money that would feed two families for two weeks.

It's a blinking nightmare, I tell you!

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