hairdressers

A commiseratory card from Caroline - thanks babe!

There should be some kind of Quality Control on people who can so swiftly shag your hair up.

If there is some kind of control, then people should know about it.

Like the 5 star hygiene certificate that restaraunts, butchers, bakers etc have to display. I promptly stopped getting take away from the curry house with 2 stars!!! It should be an incentive to up their game and sort out their cleanliness.

Hairdressing salons should have somethign like that too.

My hair is royally fucked.

I cannot quite take it in. Thank god it grows fast that's all I can say.

About 3 weeks ago, tired of plain black boring straight hair I decided to get a perm. I used to LOVE perms as a kid and my last perm was when I was about 21. It looks great on me and I love the way you get several different ways to play with your hair as it seems to hold a style better, do more wicked up-do's etc. I love playing with my hair.

So, my hair was washed, rolled up and the perm solution drizzled on. This was a new idea to me, because when my mum did it on my long hair (a hairdresser too) I had dry hair, and she wet every strand with perm lotion as she rollered it up. Oh well, thinks I, must be the new way to do it. It has been about 15 years or so after all.

Then after a massive amount of time I had the stuff washed out and then half a bottle of neutraliser was drizzled on to each roll. Hmmm. Again, a new idea because when my mum did it, she had a bowl of the stuff and it was liberally plastered all over the rollers... so much so that my hair was saturated and it was dripping down my head in my eyes, down my back... I was wringing with the stuff. The jollop must just be stronger these days, thinks I.

Then my hair was washed out, the rollers taken out, and to my shock horror, I had semi wavy, frizzy, part ringletty, part straight, elastic bandy hair. Hmmm. Not good.

The way I remember a perm was summed up in one word - wet. This was an immensely dry experience. I guess you could say after this 'new' kind of perm, that the old way was best.

The new way of perming seemed to throw in some extra added bonus items - like I also got gold highlights where the black is completely removed, and patches of brown where the black dye has washed out.

So anyway, before the woman can ruin it further by scrunching it to death and frizzing it beyond all control I say I must go and leave swiftly to get home and have a good look at it. I wash it once again and carefully comb it to find that the front is actually straighter now than it was before I had a perm and is stretchy. You can stretch out a big strand of hair about an inch at least.
the underneath is pretty ringletty, but the top is lank, and the ends - where the endpaper has been - are dead straight. It doesnt take a genius longto work out that perm lotion never even got to that bit of hair. For one thing, that part of the hair - the 1 and a half inches where the papers were - is still jet black.

The morning after this disaster I looked like this

Ok, the beard is a little excessive, theres just a few whiskers on my chin, but yes, this was me.

I decided after letting the perm settle (and wearing it UP for 3 weeks) that I needed to get it dyed again and cut evenly - if only to get rid of the straight ends. Its my mum and dads anniversary tomorrow so I went and got it done today, nice and fresh.

Now, the cut is fine. But then it was simple - cut and inch off. The dye job however...hmm

Well first of all she didn't have black, she had run out. She suggested the darkest brown. I asked her if this would cover evenly seeing as I still had a significant amount of black in there amongst the brown patches and she said yes.
Maybe I am a dumb ass, or maybe she really was telling the truth, but this did not work out. The darkest brown she put on my hair dyed all my hair brown and toned the black in a bit, but left my roots ginger.

GINGER

How the hell is this possible man? My pure virgin hair - unpermed, undyed natural roots (about 1cm - it grows like the clappers I told you) turned orange. As my glasses are off, I don't really notice how bad it is, but she assures me that its just not taken and she will put some permanent ink on it (!!!) and when I get in then just rub it off with kitchen towel. apparently it might also be best to wash my hair before bed as it could get on the pillow. Great. She then goes about performing the root miracle with her equivalent of a hairdressers Sharpie.

Then, I endure the scrunching saga, and the diffuser blow drying which makes the whole hair do look like a diabolical afro crime.

I put my glasses on and took a breath. I paid her £30 for the effort, and hurried away as quick as I could straight into the shop next door and bought a Black hair dye for £4.99 and legged it home quick with my, straight out of a 'hammer house of horrors', afro slash caveman slash hedge witch super cut.

Fucking hell.

I spent £45 on the perm and £30 getting it dyed back to black only to end up with a multicolour bale of hay on my head. God, why can I not complain??? I just can't do it.

So, I am now jet black thanks to Charlotte's help with the back of my bonce. Its going to take some baby oil and nurturing to get some life back in it, a couple of months to get it the same length and about a year to get rid of the hellish perm nightmare, but you have to look positive right?

There needs to be some kind of Body for hairdressers. Schools have Ofsted, Telecoms have Oftel... but I think Ofhair might give the wrong message. I definitely have OFF HAIR!

 My leg hairs are curlier than this.