I have an amusing story from the salon last week that I know you’ll get a kick out of. Here goes…
I’ve been struggling to find the right salon here, so last week, I tried out a new one that a friend had recommended. I checked in and was introduced to my stylist. I knew there was no way I could explain what I wanted in Russian, so I pulled out good old Google translate to assist. I typed what I wanted and handed it over to him. He handed it back just as fast, adding, “Turkish”. And then I remembered that for some odd reason, the majority of high-end stylists here are Turkish. So I made the quick switch to Turkish for the output and we were on our way. And just to be safe, I showed multiple pictures of prior haircuts to ensure he knew what I wanted.
Everything with the color went great. He gave me lots of nice foils and I was very pleased with how it came out. After rinsing out the hair dye, he took me back to the chair to begin the cut. Here’s where the trouble began. I expected him to whip out his scissors and begin snipping away. Instead, he reached for the blow dryer and began styling it with a round brush. I gave him the benefit of the doubt, thinking maybe he was going to cut it dry (not my favorite due to my abundance of fine hair). I let him carry on and was pleased when he reached for the thinning shears and thinned out the top a bit. It wasn’t much though, maybe 10 snips. Then he was back to styling. At this point I was getting annoyed and pulled out my phone to communicate again, saying, “I want you to cut off a lot more. With the normal scissors.” He was not pleased with this and called over the salon owner and two other stylists for a consult. Once again, I explained what I wanted. I showed my pictures. I pantomimed snipping motions with my fingers. I emphasized that I wanted a LOT MORE cut off.
I should probably mention that short hair, especially a pixie-cut style, is very rare here. Still, I figured they’d be able to do it; surely they were trained to cut all sorts of hair! But the more I talked about how much to remove, the more stressed my stylist looked. At some point it became altogether too much for him and he threw up his hands and walked away. Things were not looking good…
A heavily-tattooed guy stepped up to take his place. I began my spiel again, but this time, they found an English-Turkish speaking woman to translate. It seemed like we were finally getting somewhere and I thought I may actually get them to start cutting. Of course we needed another wash first (#2 of the day!) and then FINALLY we were back in the chair again. As he bent down to reach for the blow dryer I panicked, stopping him midway with frantic hand signals that I hoped indicated my displeasure. “Cut it wet, please,” I typed into the phone. He nodded, resigned, reaching for his scissors as I stifled a cheer. Finally!
He started cutting, tentatively at first, with me over-the-top encouraging with nods and smiles and thumbs-up signs. We were at the two-hour mark by this point, so I really just needed to keep us moving. We got to the point where it was time to dry it and see if any additional trimming was needed. He reached for the blow dryer and instead of styling it like my picture, he manipulated it so all my hair was standing on end. I was inwardly rolling my eyes, annoyed that he was trying some trendy punk style on me. Time was tight though, so I resigned myself to walking home looking like P!nk.
I’m itching to go and doing my damndest to sit patiently in the chair until he returned. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see him standing at the sink mixing more color. What the heck? Surely that wasn’t for me? I had already been colored. I even liked it!
But this was clearly a man on a mission who strode back confidently—and without asking permission, mind you—started spreading color all over again, this time with his hands. I was sooooo annoyed, but trying not to show it. I flashed a five-minute hand-signal with an inquisitive look, hoping this was just some quick finishing technique. No such luck. I got 6 hand flashes back in return. I did some quick mental math and with 30 minutes of color, plus another rinse and blow-dry, I was easily looking at another hour. Not to mention I looked ridiculous. And wouldn’t all this color just override the highlights? Whatever. I didn’t care anymore by that point. I just wanted out of there.
We went through the motions again—rinse, blow dry, style—and when I finally got out of there 3.5 hours later, I breathed a sigh of relief because though the process was painful, the result turned out okay. I’ll still have to trim the bangs up a little more, but that’s nothing I can’t handle. Has me thinking that maybe it’s time to be done with pixie cuts . . .
