Beauty Drop Out

It’s not a case of not being a vain at all. Like everyone else, I prefer to look okay than not: I do manage to shower and dress fairly regularly, straighten my hair on occasion and once or twice have even been known to fix up my make up in between work and evening. It is simply that, in a list of everything I plan, or mean, or think about doing in a week - from work and going out, to a grocery shop, some ironing, reading all the Sunday papers, replying to all the emails and phone messages I am perpetually woefully behind with - it is inevitable that some things don’t make the final cut. And generally, beauty things, that general polishing and hair-harvesting stuff that is expected of woman, particularly women of my age and lifestyle, are amongst those told that they are just not right for my life, this week. Don’t worry, I am not going all European on you, even I can manage whip round with a razor in the shower, I mean more the detail stuff. The stuff with scary names, like exfoliating and, err, buffing.

So it was with some trepidation yesterday morning that I set off on a mission. A mission that involved the chopping of split ends and the pouring of hot wax on my face - both of which sound, to me, like punishment for treason. Actually making an appointment for a haircut on a Saturday afternoon is way too much like organization for me, so I hopefully wandered up Kensington Church Street where there are about a gazillion salons, to see if there was someone who could fit me in. Four salons later, I felt terribly sheepish about my presumption and was resigning myself to another week of a haircut that wouldn’t look out of place on a sheepdog, when a young man shoved a flier in my face. Usually, fliers handed out in central London involve either learning to speak English or friendly Russian girls with whips, both of which I am pretty much set for, so I was all set to chuck it in the bin when something caught my eye: “haircut - £10!” Result! I thought. Now, even I am aware that the only people who can get a decent haircut in central London for £10 are seven year old boys, but as all I wanted was a trim rather than anything done to the style, I figured that it was safe enough. Off I trotted to the address on the flier. An illustrious salon, as it turned out, decorated in the style of the Beauty School Dropout sequence from Grease stained with 30 odd years of chain smoking. Lined above the mirrors were those old fashioned space helmet like hair dryers which I believe were once used to set perms and possibly blue rinses. The mirrors were, naturally, ringed with light bulbs which set off the swirly seventies wallpaper and cracked linoleum nicely and the whole place had a sort of yellow tinge, like a Polaroid photograph taken in 1982. Inspiring. Even more inspiring were the three stylists sitting glumly on the customer chairs: one swinging idly in circles putting me in mind of a caged animal, the other two staring at the floor, all three looking for all the world like extras in a East European movie. At a funeral. So naturally I gaily waved my flier and, hoping that it didn’t come out like a cruel joke, asked if they could fit me in. They could. The stylist who’d been swinging in circles stood up, revealing himself to be the lovechild of a Soho rent boy and a bloodhound, stared at me and my hair as though he might cry, then sighed and beckoned me to the shadowy back where there were four stained sinks and mismatching chairs. I made for one of them, he snapped that that one was broken, I had to sit in this one. I obeyed. You might have thought that at this point I’d be some what concerned as to what this man planned to do with my hair. Especially as he hadn’t asked what I wanted, or even properly looked at it (it was in a ponytail when I walked in) but at this stage I was thoroughly enjoying the bizarre experience and figured I could always buy a wig if absolutely necessary. Yes I know, sometimes I agree I should be slightly more vain.

Luckily for all he planned to do very little. He washed it - I don’t mean to sound high maintenance, but the scalp massage promised by the flier was somewhat desultory - then when it was combed out wet, he scowled at it, snipped approximately three times and informed me that I was done.
“Errr, what about drying it?” I asked.
“That’s £5 extra.”
I don’t think so. It wasn’t the extra money that I objected to, £15 for a haircut is still hardly breaking the bank, it was the fact that he’d waited until my hair was sopping wet before springing this on me. It was like a plumber showing up at my house, pulling the cistern to pieces then announcing that it would cost more to put it back together. He got my hair wet, he could bloody well dry it. My argument however, fell on deaf ears. I especially didn’t feel that the plumber analogy was appreciated. Eventually I resorted to pointing at the miserable day outside and, omitting that I leave for work every morning in life with hair wet from the shower, announced that I would most likely come down with pneumonia or pleurisy or something.
“Fine, you can use the hair dryer.” He shrugged.
Err, I can? He took it out of the drawer and slammed it on the counter next to me, then took his own seat and resumed his swinging in circles. As I don’t even own a blow drier, it is safe to assume that I probably didn’t impress the three stylists who watched - two curious, one furious - me dry my hair with a sniffing attempt at dignity. I paid my £10 and when he asked for a tip suggested that he don’t have his customers dry their own hair, then emerged back into 2006 with precisely identical looking hair. If you were to show a before and after picture of this haircut, you could hold a competition to judge which was which.

Despite the entertainment value of the hair cut, I decided to splash out on a proper place, with employees who wouldn’t shout at me, for my eyebrow shape. I have rather a lot more hair, therefore more margin for error, than I have eyebrows. My eyebrows were duly shaped and I headed off down Ken High Street for a bit of shopping. Utterly forgetting just how sensitive my skin is. So sensitive, that whenever I wax anything (I’ll just leave what to your imagination) my skin swells, reddens, and even bruises for hours. And so I moseyed the shops of High Street Kensington looking like the Elephant Man. With a sheepdog’s hair cut.

Lucky I am not that vain, then.