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I’ve always been somewhat averse to hairdressers and getting my hair cut. You could say “hate with a passion”, and you wouldn’t be that far off. I’ve never really given it much thought until today though…

As a child visiting “Don” in Wells was always fun. There were only two barber shops there when I was growing up, the other being “Leon”. Don knew my brother and I reasonably well – well enough to recognise us – and would always make it fun when we visited.

We’d have a plank of wood put on the chair so he could reach us, a lot of drama was made out of raising the seat, and he would make a lot of fun with the water squirt when he dampened our hair. In his strong Italian accent (probably the first foreign accent I became aware of), he’d say “squirt” every time he sprayed, and it was always fun. I can remember being generally disappointed when the haircut was over, and I’d have to sit and leaf through the year old copies of glossy magazines I had no interest in whilst my brother had his hair cut.

A visit to Leon was an eye-opener for a nine or ten year old me. We went with a friend who was long overdue a cut, and the Pirelli calendars was an introduction to basic female anatomy. I realised then why my mother preferred Don, and why my friends father preferred Leon. On the price-list of services was one that still makes me laugh, “Repairing home bodge job”. The images this created, and still create, in my mind of basin cuts gone horribly wrong make me feel sorry for the poor child who has to point at that option on the price list.

Years passed, and the perils of student life, and watching the pennies. In my first few years at University I don’t recall what I did for haircuts. I fear I have blocked the experience from my memory for good reasons. But it was in my final year that I discovered – somewhere on the south side of Cowley road, hidden in a back street, another Italian hairdresser. A prompt, and cheap, service. The real treat though was the warm shaving foam they used to finish the cut. Trimming down the side burns, tidying the edges, that sort of thing. The feeling of warm shaving foam, followed by the delicate and careful use of lethally sharp razor blades leave a good feeling, not least that you survived the scraping down your jugular, but also that it was all actually rather nice.

The fear probably set in when I lived in Dusseldorf. Working for an American company, English was the language everybody used. Plenty of graduates from around Europe and the USA all shared English as a common language. Local staff all spoke fluent English too, so the opportunity to practice German didn’t come that often, not helped by a healthy dollup of laziness. Two attempts to learn German failed dismally, at some expense, but when there was beer to be drunk after a long day at work, my ability to see through even basic lessons and the mandatory homework just meant I was confined to coping in restaurants and shops.

Of course, getting your hair cut in a hair salon when you can’t speak the lingo is rather difficult. Short (Kurzschluß or somesuch) was the limit of my ability, proceeded – of course – with a liberal about of brow furrowing and waving my hand over my head, not to say pinching my fingers together. Needless to say, I often ended up with less than satisfactory hair cuts, and bemused – and well tipped I might add – hairdressers. Tactics taken by friends in a similar predicament boiled down to getting a short (clipper only) haircut when back in Blighty, and “seeing it through” for a few months. A tactic I resisted, but I can assure you it was seriously tempting.

So I think it’s here that my dislike of haircuts crept in, although I’m not entirely convinced. Certainly the euphoria that followed a successful encounter with a German hairdresser, as the moment you leave the shop is the precise moment when it’s going to be ages to the next haircut (of course, the shorter the better). It’s all downhill after that, but it was worth enjoying the feeling for a day or two. Particularly when showering and washing my hair – the short hair reminds you that a successful encounter has been had not that long ago.

My dislike could also have crept in with the deterioration of my eye sight. I wear glasses, so have to take them off when sharp objects are being used on my head. Consequently, I can’t see anything that’s going on. Not that the hairdressers remember you can’t see. Asking all sorts of inane questions that assume you can see, when your glasses are quite clearly (for them) on display on the dresser in front of the mirror. I wore contact lenses for a while, and that’s a novelty. Makes it almost more bearable too, being able to keep an eye on them. You also don’t slope your head forward all the time. When you can’t see, your head just slumps despite where they try and position it.

Returning to the UK after my few years away in Germany meant getting out and finding a new hairdresser. Some brief forays into cheap hairdressers followed, but somehow I’d lost the ability – if I ever had it – of describing what I wanted. “Just cut it short” just doesn’t – please excuse the pun – cut it really. Somehow they seem to want some detailed insight into the hair cut, and the meaning of it all, for all that I know. Clippers were something to be feared in my mind. Even though I like it short, I don’t like it – or so I thought – that short. So something about “keeping the parting” and a random selection of “layered at the back”, “levelled” or goodness knows what else seemed to result in the right sort of thing.

I went through a period of getting a wash with cuts, but that’s always traumatic, even though the vigourous rubbing to get things dry is always nice, I always feel like it’s a bit too much to be going through for just “short”. But sometimes the look in the eye of the hairdresser (usually female when washing is felt necessary) indicates that a wash is a damn good idea given its length. Or perhaps they all suffer from “water bottle squirt fatigue” when mops of my length turned up. Who knows.

So whilst working at Victoria I finally stumbled on what I thought I had lost. An italian barber who did a good (if relatively expensive) job. No warm shaving foam, but such things are sent to try us. They got it right most times, and didn’t always want to engage in trite conversation about goodness knows what, that they hadn’t discussed countless times before, that I had no interest in really talking about. Get there early enough and it was straight to the chair, none of that tedious waiting about “reading” well-worn men’s magazines.

That is until a friend got there and managed to experience the perils of the older hairdresser. Rather than water on his scalp, he got window cleaner. He hadn’t noticed, and my friend was rather surprised by the smell. Enquiring, it was discovered to some shock that he’d had windowlene or somesuch sprayed over his head. A free haircut resulted, but that sealed the fate of that hairdresser for my friend. I continued to go, but always with some wariness about the products being deployed in my direction.

Enter clippers. As the hike over to Victoria became less convenient due to different jobs, I discovered my descriptions could be summarised as “number 4 and tidy up on top”, but ultimately these were very short: too short. I always find myself worrying that the hairdresser’s training has simply been a spot of lawn-mowing in earlier years. A predilection for piercing seems to go hand in hand with a predilection for clippers, and that unnerves me somewhat. Whilst I hate being sat in a barbers chair for too long, there’s the too little time situation as well….

I also realised some time ago that a good haircut generally meant a bloke doing it. I always feel uncomfortable, even nervous, with female hairdressers. I’ve no idea why (I’ll resist the temptation to make any jokes here, but feel free to insert your own if you think it’s warranted). I have actually had a few good haircuts by the fairer sex, but somehow I don’t feel quite as comfortable and assured they know what they’re doing with my hair. Quite curious, given that most hairdressers are women. Most likely it’s my sub-concious yearning back to my childhood for Don to put me on a plank of wood, squirt and cut my hair again in no time at all, that I’ve always gravitated to Italian barbers. Goodness knows what Freud might make of the whole idea though.

So up here in Scotland, having discovered a place to get your haircut over in Shawlands with minimal waiting, I find I can just about get away with some vague descriptions about short, but not too short. Today clippers number 5 came out, and the result seems reasonably good. The judge is of course Frances, who has stronger opinions than me of what constitutes a good hair cut. So long as it’s short and trouble free I don’t care really. I just wish I could understand what half the hairdressers say. Feels a bit like Germany at times.

The point? I wish there was one. I just hate getting my hair cut, and I wish there was some sort of standard description of hair cuts. I wish the whole process of other people moving my head by small (firm) amounts, squirting liquids, and asking altogether difficult questions was all much simpler. A menu, perhaps. Or just a standard. Short back and sides feels a bit of a cop out, not least asking for trouble. The look of derision some of these hairdressers give you when you don’t opt for the latest look makes me want to embellish my descriptions some what, probably at my peril. So that’s out.

All in all, it’s an altogether stressful experience. If there was a pill I could take that stopped my hair from leaking, I’d take it. And if I wouldn’t be laughed out of the country by all my friends and family of having all my hair off, I’d probably consider that too. So right now, I’m enjoying the feeling of having put off my next visit to a hairdresser by a couple of months, and just wanted to share that… Sorry for wasting your time, but please think of me the next time you go along to a hairdresser…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 5th, 2005 at 2:52 pm and is filed under Glasgow, Humour, Personal, Rants, Scotland, Thoughts, UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.