Hairdressing Impressions

Yesterday I went to the hairdresser (aka barber). For those of you who have seen me over the last week you'd have to admit... I really needed one. So since I moved place I decided to try out a new place. Thoroughly impressed, was I.

My first impression was - this place looks pretty clean and refined, i'll give this one a shot. I entered, obviously without a booking, and was told that it'd be 20 minutes before i could be serviced (couldn't really expect to get in straight away without a booking... but I was hoping). I also found out in advance how much the haircut would cost - $35. Pretty expensive for a guy, I thought. But, what the hell... I decided i'd give it a try. (Jess gets haircuts for something around $50, so it's not all that bad in retrosepct).

Ok, so 15 minutes later I came back. I was told to sit by the hair washing area - w00t, a hair wash. Some chick was waiting by the hair washing area and told me sit down and lie back. No complaints from me. First came the shampoo, then came the conditioner - all of this being explained to me by the chick washing my hair. The next part thoroughly impressed me. While rubbing some hair product (I don't know wtf it is) into her hands, the chick started off by saying "just so you know, this will make your scalp cold and tingly - it's to promote blood flow and hair growth". After the application of this wierdo material my head was indeed cool and tingly. It's seriously one of the coolest sensations around. You girls have been living the high life and us guys have been missing out. So next I had to wait for the hairdresser to finish with his current customer. The wait was no problem as I was marvelling at the coolness of this mysterious hair product.

Not really being a veteran of the hair wash thing I must admit I had a bit of a sore neck afterwards. There's probably some neck support at the hair wash basin but for some reason I was using my neck muscles to hold my head up.... mmm... learn something new everyday.

The adventure doesn't end there. I did have to wait a bit for the hairdresser to come to me, but that's ok. This hairdresser was fairly nice, I don't really know the hairdresser lingo and i'm sure that fact was fairly obvious when I spoke. Nothing like "i'll have a Number 2, thanks" came me, it was more like "ummm.. a trim thanks - off the ears and make it shorter all round". Seriously, I didn't know wtf to say and I still don't. He probably really didn't understand what the hell I was saying so he took the initiative (well he understood the "off the ears" part). He asked me a series of questions and then the cutting started. (If you're curious, he asked how much to cut off the fringe and if I wanted the hair at the back to hang down).

The haircut took approximately 20 minutes, maybe more. Definitely a record for me. Usually what happens is that the hairdresser uses the razor, goes crazy, and then i'm out the door in 5 minutes. Not this hairdresser, and it's not a criticism. This dude took his time and used the scissors most of the time - the razor came out for the hair around the ears, and that was only briefly. Quite an interesting thing watching your own hair get cut - part the hair, measure, cut, repeat. In the end my hair looked pretty good and it wasn't excruciatingly short either (a problem that i've had with hairdressers in the past). Summing up, this hairdresser gets a 9/10 from me. Not a bad deal for $35 - time, effort, and cool hair products.