Haircut day

[elusivek]

I've been tracking my visits to the hairdresser. Having short, pixie-cut length hair, I seem to need to see the hairdresser rather frequently. I've timed myself an average of 6 weeks between visits but actually by week 3 I'm already itching for a trim. But. Slight trim and actual cut, the guy charges the same, so I try to drag it out.

The hairdresser suggested to me a few visits ago to do a root perm at the crown of my head. Said this way will give some strength to the root, so my (thin and fine) hair can look a little more volume-y. I decided to give it a go today.

I remember as a kid, the head massage during hairwashing wasn't a thing. The first time I encountered that was when I went for a haircut in mainland China. Then in the late 1990s early 2000s when the immigration policy was loosened and there was a great influx of mainland Chinese people moving to Macau, thus more mainland chinese staff, the hairdresser got a washer lad and it was then that we started to have head massages in the hairdresser I went to in Macau.

The usual flow is, go in, get your hair washed, head massaged, then wait for the hairdresser guy to give you the cut. Sometimes they swap things around according to the works involved. Like with me today, the hairwasher lady was busy putting in the perm rolls for another client, so the hairdresser guy washed my hair - sans the head massage, which I was a bit saddened about, and then had my haircut immediately. When my haircut was done, the hairdresser put in the perm roller things on my head. I guess because on my short hair there was some strategy involved, so the experienced hairdresser guy did it instead of the hairwasher lady. Then I had to sit around for the perm. Finally, the lady gave me a proper hair wash with the head massage, LOL, so I did not miss out on that.

The roots of my hair don't look curly or frizzed, and I don't see how it's standing "more strongly" than before? But I guess it's something I'll notice tomorrow when I wake up and comb my hair? Maybe I won't need to spend time with the hair fan and the roller brush. I'll see tomorrow.

Comments

[jo]

It's so funny that you mention the head massage thing. When I moved back to Toronto from Montreal in 2008, that was my first exposure to the whole massage thing. No one in Montreal did that, and no one had ever previously done it (I moved to Montreal in 1989). But in Toronto, everyone did the head massage. I didn't hate it, but it just seemed weird to me. Anyway, my current stylist not only does not do the massage, she doesn't even wash your hair. She stopped hair washing during Covid, and decided to not resume. She instructs her clients to arrive with clean, product-free hair, and she just wets it as needed with the spray mister. Suits me just fine, but apparently a couple of her long-time clients really aren't keen on the no more washing or massage!

I've mostly always had some sort of short hairstyle going, and yes, it does require more frequent trips to the stylist. But for most of this year, the style I've gone with allows me to stretch it out easily to 12 weeks between cuts -- I could probably go even longer if I wanted or had to. It's super short all over, but with longer, wispier strands at the nape of my neck and in front of my ears (I guess where sideburns would be on a guy). So it's OK if the long bits get even longer, and the rest is so short, that even after 12 weeks, it still looks pretty good.