petite anglaise

I’m not sure what possessed me (maybe it was seeing ‘Cutting It’ on BBC Prime), but I decided to brave an English hairdressing salon for a change. Whenever I have found a decent hairdresser in Paris in the past, he/she emigrated shortly afterwards, so I found myself constantly testing new hairdressers with often distressing results. This despite having revised my French hairdressing vocabulary – although I suspect that my dictionary is guilty of misinformation. It led me to believe that ‘dégradé’ meant ‘layered’. In my opinion a better translation would be ‘something suitably degrading’. The haircut inflicted on me prior to the birth of my daughter was so vile (think raccoon with mange) that I have edited myself out of her photo album/the first six months of her life.

The salon that my sister recommended in York seemed professional enough, but the prices quoted over the phone were worryingly inexpensive. I looked up their website, which featured lots of pictures of asymmetric fringes and spoke of branches in Thirsk, Scunthorpe, Ilkley, Brussels and Shanghai. Oddly this was not a source of comfort.

Thankfully the ordeal is now over and I don’t have any regrets. Yet. But I must say that a lot of things have changed since my last visit to a hairdressers in the UK.

First of all, I got one of those lovely head massages I have grown to expect in France and it made me groan out loud (hastily followed by a fake fit of coughing to cover up my embarrassment). Secondly, I accepted the offer of coffee, expecting a little espresso to revive me from my head massage torpor. When it arrived, it was a frothy latte in a tall glass with cinnamon sprinkles on top. If only the hairdresser had stopped snipping for just a second so I could drink it before it got cold. It was like having a haircut in Starbucks.

On a less positive note, the salon apparently opens seven days a week. Is this a good thing? A hairdresser complete with raging hangover on a Sunday morning is surely not the most cheerful/skillful of creatures? I don’t think I’d push my luck that far.