Getting my haircut is always a stressful time for me. It usually takes a couple of weeks for me to move from needing a haircut, to actually getting one. The intervening time is spent steeling myself for the trip. Do I really need one? If I tilt my head this way and stare into the distance it still looks acceptable, right?
I used to love my hair. I was obsessed with long hair and resolved to grow flowing locks of my own. My love of long hair even led me to running an eBay-based hair-band business during the summer of '05. That venture got shut down after some negative comments affected the integrity of my brand value. Who would have thought people would be a little disheartened to find their fiver bought them a bit of market stall elastic, super glued together? To this day I harbour suspicions that some of the negative comments were manufactured by the previous hair-band sellers I undercut. They didn’t like a newcomer coming in and upsetting their monopoly and they took action. Business is business. But sometimes it hurts. It still rankles to be honest.
I mention haircuts because today I took the plunge. As a gradult in the city I need to look the part. Unfortunately for me it seems I’ve been cast as the protagonist in Home Alone.
When I enter a hairdressers I exude the confidence of a scouser in a spelling test. Sure, I’ll pick up an old copy of Heat but I won’t give Kerry Katona’s family day out the attention it deserves. I’m concentrating on the hairdresser. What’s his fringe technique? How does he deal with ears? And most importantly, what does his hair look like?
Today I was confident. The guy was sporting an elegant swept fringe. Okay, the blonde highlights aren’t my cup of tea but I’ll put them down as a concession to his trade. Calmed by the way he was going about his work I settled back into the magazine. I was just letting the news that Matt Cardle was spotted in Tesco settle in when the unthinkable happened...
I was summoned to the chair. Not by the sleek fringed professional on the left but by a bald man emerging from the backroom. A bald man! How can I trust my hair’s future to a man who couldn’t safeguard that of his own! Now I was nervous, eyeing him up in the mirror with disdain as he ran his fingers through my hair.
Baldness is of course a tragic, hereditary trait and my preconceived misconceptions were alarmingly prejudiced. But in this case they were wholly justified. I winced as he went to town on my hair, cutting with a speed and ferocity that suggested he had only emerged from the backroom because the adverts were on. Snipping off chunks so haphazardly that I began to suspect he was purposely savaging my locks as retribution for the cruel hand his follicles had dealt him.
Only once did he slow down from his ridiculous pace. Unfortunately this was to cut my fringe into ruler straight line one inch up from eyebrows. When Vogue says blunt fringes are in, I don’t think this was what they hand in mind.
Before anyone starts a charity fund for me, with some wax and a gentle ruffle every two to three minutes I think I’m going to be able to live until it grows back -but I don’t think I’m going to thrive.
Maybe I should pay more than ten pounds for a haircut.
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