The First Haircuts

Maybe it wasn’t the best idea to choose a hair salon at random, but there were only three in town and they all had similar ratings online. We came prepared, with photos of our freshly-cut looks at home. J was a little nervous, as her stylist had said, “I don’t know what I’d tell them – there’s a lot going on with this haircut.”

The setup in France is different than in the US – the chairs don’t go up and down and the stylist sat down as well, on a chair on wheels, for some of the cut. M’s barber shop has a vacuum system to suck all the cut hair off your head… I’ve never seen that in a women’s hair salon – they blow it off with a hair dryer – and it was the same here. M was not impressed that they were making a big mess that would just have to be cleaned up later.

M was reasonably happy with his cut, though he thought it was a little shorter on one side than the other.

Things started off well for J, who had a shampooing to start. In fact, the little scalp massage was probably the best part of the whole experience.

Unfortunately, it went downhill from there – black diamond downhill. How could I not have noticed that the hair on the left was way shorter than on the right before I left?

Well, it may have been because she tucked the hair behind the ear, or because she never took a mirror and showed me the whole cut at the end, but it’s more likely because I was staring in horrified fascination at how she’d butchered my bangs. Cut on a slant, super choppy, too short, … Or maybe it was the cavalier way she whipped out a pair of thinning scissors and ran them through my bangs and then, for good measure, took a couple of swipes at the top of my head, when I asked her to thin the bangs a little. I had the impression she was an artiste and I shouldn’t have questioned her.

The dilemma – do I go back and say this is unacceptable and you need to fix it? (Do I trust her to fix it?) Do I go to some other salon and pay to have it fixed? Do I attempt a fix at home? Well, it’s already looking pretty rough so I opted for the at-home fix.

There’s still plenty going on with this haircut…but not in a good way. Lots of lessons learned for next time! Now, how do we choose between the other two salons for the next cut?