My Trips to the Hairdresser
Have you ever seen a young child at a hairdresser's? You know when they are just about 1 or 2 years old. They still can't understand why they are being forced into a scary looking chair and why their parents or grandparents are holding their head tight as the evil man with the scissors descends upon them. That’s the point when they start wailing non-stop......
Now I don't remember my toddler-trips to a hairdresser or a beauty salon. I suspect that my mother, a natural at dress-designing and other arty things, probably snipped off my locks at home for a while! When I was slightly older I distinctly remember going to the little Ladies Beauty Parlour, a cubby-hole of a place in the Neelkanth shopping centre near my house. It was a mini-adventure. First you would have to sit in that grown-up chair, then have the white cloak wrapped around you, then the lady would spray water from a little white plastic bottle and finally with the click click click of the small scissors you would see little locks falling to the ground.
By the time I was in High School I graduated to the all-new Nikhaar Beauty Parlour in the adjoining residential colony. The manager of this place was a grumpy lady. Amazingly, although we complained in private, we continued to give her custom just because the location was so convenient. Haircuts in those days were not exactly planned events. Sometimes we could be visiting my aunt in Mandakini Enclave and the grown-ups would decide that one of the girls needed a haircut, and all of us would be herded to some pink-walled salon. During summer hols we could be in a different city, usually my grandmother’s hometown, heading to the sari shop or the ‘chaat-shop’ (Indian fast food). On impulse an aunty would stop at the local hairdresser and in we would all go, coming out an hour later with short blunt-cut styles, or those horrible ‘flicks’ made popular by Hindi movies, or even an occasional fringe!
This bohemian attitude to hair-cutting in my childhood made me pretty relaxed about experimenting with my hair in college. When I was 18, a friend’s mum training with a hair institute offered me a free perm. I was totally excited. I spent a Sunday afternoon on her terrace where we put lots of wood rollers and a horrible smelling liquid in my hair. The result was a bit like a head full of spaghetti. At college the next day, I sportingly took the comments- "Did you put your finger in a plug-point ?!" Bah, ignorant boys :D Still the style grew on me and everyone else. Since then I’ve gone on to alternate between straight and permed hair a few times.
Whenever I move to a new place, after the second week I usually start looking around – hmm so where is the nearest hair dresser? Often this has been a really good way to get a feel for the place. From the type of people who come in, the services offered, the price list and the professionalism of the hair-dresser, you can tell what makes that local area tick.
Without doubt my longest-running ‘hairdresser relationship’ has been with the amiable Colin who worked at Tangles in Earl’s Court. I discovered Tangles by accident just a few weeks after first moving to London. The price list on its window was what caught my eye. Now here was a place which looked clean and welcoming and did not charge astronomical prices for a simple trim. That indeed was a rarity in Zone 1, London. My first visit to Tangles was about average. A young red-haired girl of Mediterranean descent did some quick snips, made polite conversation and that was it.
Unfazed, and still awaiting my second month's salary, I decided to try it again. That’s when I met Cool Colin- who looked more like a retired rock star than a hair dresser. He was dressed in a flowery shirt with a mop of ‘blondish’ curls on his head, and I have to admit it took me a while to figure out if it was masculine-looking lady or a gentle-mannered man I was speaking to! The hair cut I got was good, but amazingly it looked even better in the following days. Since then I have patronized the place for nearly 7 years, often doing a 20-minute tube trip just to get there.
Back in Delhi this summer, I discovered that Nikhaar was totally Not-Cool these days and the manager was now older but no less grumpy! Most locals now went a few kms north to Meghna Beauty Parlour which had shot to fame after the owner’s son made it big in a long-running Hindi soap opera. So off I went to Meghna's. I entered the hairdressing area to see a row of chairs lined up along the room and men in black shirts furiously cutting away dark-haired locks. My first thought was - Aah so this is what a hair-dressing assembly line would look like! To add to the bizarreness was a person, definitely North Indian, with blond hair and a strapless yellow-orange sundress who walked in with an aggressive stride. A few of the employees then hovered around and started cracking jokes around warm weather. Soon after, one of the beautician-ladies tried to encourage me to enter what appeared to be a closet (but was actually their massage room) for a beauty treatment. At that point I decided to head back to the very-boring but normal Nikhaar....
On moving to Mumbai I chanced upon the Bandra Local Newsletter which had a list of exclusive beauty parlours frequented by celebrities. Most of these salons had grim-looking guards standing outside. Ostensibly guarding their celebrity clients from the paparazzi but leaving people like me feel that I could be stopped at the gate for not carrying a Dior and not wearing my Manholos. My cleaning lady told me about a parlour where her cousin works, but that was too downmarket even for my simple tastes! Luckily on a random auto rickshaw-ride I spotted Citrus just 15 minutes from my house. It looked cool from outside. When I walked in, the manager-ess was warm and friendly. The price list was also ok- not cheap by Indian standards but definitely good value for Bandra. I even found out that TV celebrities and models frequented the place. (Not the A-listers I guess!)
I got the usual ‘Quality of hair and scalp’ lecture that is so common in India. The lady was actually nice and chatty. The conversation went something like this:
Hairdresser: “Madame- you have had change of water?”.
Me: “ Umm Yes, I was travelling a bit”.
Hairdresser: “Aah. I can tell. Your hair is a bit limp. You need the Oil Therapy. Also don’t use Mehendi (henna), its all old fashioned, not good. Makes hair brittle. Our mothers used it and its Not Good. Use a good hair dye”.
Me: “Umm I don’t really need a hair dye”.
Hairdresser: “Yes of course. But if you wanted to you could use this brand…”.
After a while-
Hairdresser: “You can also get a good face massage to help remove the spots”.
Me: [Looking panic-stricken at the mirror and thinking- spots, which spots? They must have appeared in the last hour. Eeeks !! ]
If I had a choice I'd have Mr Colin again in a jiffy! I always remember him saying he really liked styling my straight hair, and he was so happy with my shampoo choice, and what a great idea it was to change my hair style this time.
I guess he was better salesman in some ways but then a girl doesn’t just need a good haircut, she also needs to be told all those complimentary and uplifting things (even if only half-true) just to make her day! The smarter salons know this, the less smart ones must learn ;-)
Now I don't remember my toddler-trips to a hairdresser or a beauty salon. I suspect that my mother, a natural at dress-designing and other arty things, probably snipped off my locks at home for a while! When I was slightly older I distinctly remember going to the little Ladies Beauty Parlour, a cubby-hole of a place in the Neelkanth shopping centre near my house. It was a mini-adventure. First you would have to sit in that grown-up chair, then have the white cloak wrapped around you, then the lady would spray water from a little white plastic bottle and finally with the click click click of the small scissors you would see little locks falling to the ground.
By the time I was in High School I graduated to the all-new Nikhaar Beauty Parlour in the adjoining residential colony. The manager of this place was a grumpy lady. Amazingly, although we complained in private, we continued to give her custom just because the location was so convenient. Haircuts in those days were not exactly planned events. Sometimes we could be visiting my aunt in Mandakini Enclave and the grown-ups would decide that one of the girls needed a haircut, and all of us would be herded to some pink-walled salon. During summer hols we could be in a different city, usually my grandmother’s hometown, heading to the sari shop or the ‘chaat-shop’ (Indian fast food). On impulse an aunty would stop at the local hairdresser and in we would all go, coming out an hour later with short blunt-cut styles, or those horrible ‘flicks’ made popular by Hindi movies, or even an occasional fringe!
This bohemian attitude to hair-cutting in my childhood made me pretty relaxed about experimenting with my hair in college. When I was 18, a friend’s mum training with a hair institute offered me a free perm. I was totally excited. I spent a Sunday afternoon on her terrace where we put lots of wood rollers and a horrible smelling liquid in my hair. The result was a bit like a head full of spaghetti. At college the next day, I sportingly took the comments- "Did you put your finger in a plug-point ?!" Bah, ignorant boys :D Still the style grew on me and everyone else. Since then I’ve gone on to alternate between straight and permed hair a few times.
Whenever I move to a new place, after the second week I usually start looking around – hmm so where is the nearest hair dresser? Often this has been a really good way to get a feel for the place. From the type of people who come in, the services offered, the price list and the professionalism of the hair-dresser, you can tell what makes that local area tick.
Without doubt my longest-running ‘hairdresser relationship’ has been with the amiable Colin who worked at Tangles in Earl’s Court. I discovered Tangles by accident just a few weeks after first moving to London. The price list on its window was what caught my eye. Now here was a place which looked clean and welcoming and did not charge astronomical prices for a simple trim. That indeed was a rarity in Zone 1, London. My first visit to Tangles was about average. A young red-haired girl of Mediterranean descent did some quick snips, made polite conversation and that was it.
Unfazed, and still awaiting my second month's salary, I decided to try it again. That’s when I met Cool Colin- who looked more like a retired rock star than a hair dresser. He was dressed in a flowery shirt with a mop of ‘blondish’ curls on his head, and I have to admit it took me a while to figure out if it was masculine-looking lady or a gentle-mannered man I was speaking to! The hair cut I got was good, but amazingly it looked even better in the following days. Since then I have patronized the place for nearly 7 years, often doing a 20-minute tube trip just to get there.
Back in Delhi this summer, I discovered that Nikhaar was totally Not-Cool these days and the manager was now older but no less grumpy! Most locals now went a few kms north to Meghna Beauty Parlour which had shot to fame after the owner’s son made it big in a long-running Hindi soap opera. So off I went to Meghna's. I entered the hairdressing area to see a row of chairs lined up along the room and men in black shirts furiously cutting away dark-haired locks. My first thought was - Aah so this is what a hair-dressing assembly line would look like! To add to the bizarreness was a person, definitely North Indian, with blond hair and a strapless yellow-orange sundress who walked in with an aggressive stride. A few of the employees then hovered around and started cracking jokes around warm weather. Soon after, one of the beautician-ladies tried to encourage me to enter what appeared to be a closet (but was actually their massage room) for a beauty treatment. At that point I decided to head back to the very-boring but normal Nikhaar....
On moving to Mumbai I chanced upon the Bandra Local Newsletter which had a list of exclusive beauty parlours frequented by celebrities. Most of these salons had grim-looking guards standing outside. Ostensibly guarding their celebrity clients from the paparazzi but leaving people like me feel that I could be stopped at the gate for not carrying a Dior and not wearing my Manholos. My cleaning lady told me about a parlour where her cousin works, but that was too downmarket even for my simple tastes! Luckily on a random auto rickshaw-ride I spotted Citrus just 15 minutes from my house. It looked cool from outside. When I walked in, the manager-ess was warm and friendly. The price list was also ok- not cheap by Indian standards but definitely good value for Bandra. I even found out that TV celebrities and models frequented the place. (Not the A-listers I guess!)
I got the usual ‘Quality of hair and scalp’ lecture that is so common in India. The lady was actually nice and chatty. The conversation went something like this:
Hairdresser: “Madame- you have had change of water?”.
Me: “ Umm Yes, I was travelling a bit”.
Hairdresser: “Aah. I can tell. Your hair is a bit limp. You need the Oil Therapy. Also don’t use Mehendi (henna), its all old fashioned, not good. Makes hair brittle. Our mothers used it and its Not Good. Use a good hair dye”.
Me: “Umm I don’t really need a hair dye”.
Hairdresser: “Yes of course. But if you wanted to you could use this brand…”.
After a while-
Hairdresser: “You can also get a good face massage to help remove the spots”.
Me: [Looking panic-stricken at the mirror and thinking- spots, which spots? They must have appeared in the last hour. Eeeks !! ]
If I had a choice I'd have Mr Colin again in a jiffy! I always remember him saying he really liked styling my straight hair, and he was so happy with my shampoo choice, and what a great idea it was to change my hair style this time.
I guess he was better salesman in some ways but then a girl doesn’t just need a good haircut, she also needs to be told all those complimentary and uplifting things (even if only half-true) just to make her day! The smarter salons know this, the less smart ones must learn ;-)
Comments
Post a Comment