Hair's the Story
...written on 2000-10-27, @ 23:35:35
Fri October 27, 2000
I stood in front of "Mod's Hair" and looked in. Hmm, here I go I said. I thought I had enough money on me to cover whatever eventuality befell me and I figured I could chalk it up to experience.
I walked in and was approached by the friendly non-English speaking staff. "Hair cut-o, ikura desu ka?" How much is a hair cut? The woman kindly pointed out the $54 entry on the styling menu. "Ah so, desu." I said as I sat down to look at some hairdo magazines. They said something to me and indicated that I hand over my purse, sunglasses, cell phone, and jacket, which I did.
I sat and looked at some pictures and was really torn about what I wanted. Most of these pictures were of anglo women. The Japanese girls now are very much into razor cuts which spike their hair to their cheeks and necks and allow them to mould great "bed head" looks. I wasn't sure I wanted my hair to look like coconut strands though.
The solicitous young man bent down and asked me something. He was the lucky one who was going to cut my hair. We peered at pictures, I showed him some, pointed to my hair and said some things and he picked out a couple of pictures, pointed to my hair and said some things and I thought we both had the same basic idea of what I wanted: the length was ok, just shorten the layers on top, clip out the bulk and make the bangs airy.
They gave me a robe to put on and the woman led me over to the sink for a shampoo. In an earlier entry I said shampoos were considered a separate item and the charge added to the haircut. I was hoping I did indeed have enough money to cover everything.
There were three sinks with chairs in a row and there was a woman in the chair next to mine. She was leaning back and had her eyes covered with a washcloth. Her head was in some kind of a contraption in the sink that was swooshing and I wondered what she was having done.
Then I realized that the salon woman was leaning me back as well, giving me a remote control and saying something about the buttons. I didn't understand her, but another man came by and said the big button was for "hard" and the little button was for "soft". She then covered my eyes with a washcloth, put the same contraption over my head as my next-chair-neighbor and started the engine.
This machine then proceeded to wash my hair! I had my head in a hairwasher! There was a hose attached to a bottle of shampoo on the sink and little spray arms inside the sink spun and rotated their way around my head squirting water and shampoo everywhere.
Just the thought of this alone could have sent me into a gut wrenching chortle, but those squirt thingees TICKLED!! So imagine, me lying there with my head immersed in a sophisticated mini car wash for heads, eyes covered with a wash cloth and body wracked with giggles. I tried to cover up my mouth with my hand, but that obviously did no good. What sounded like muffled snickers to me (water pulsing in my ears, neh?) were high pitched squeals to all those in the salon. I was crying from laughing so hard! The salon lady came over twice to see if I was alright.
Finally the tickle torture cycle was over and the washcloth removed and I was led to the haircutting chair. I tried not to notice the amused stares of the staff and clientele. I didn't care, whatever that shampoo was going to cost, it was worth it.
I sat in the hair cutting chair and the salon lady began to pound on my head and shoulders. I watched her technique in awe. She had her hands clasped in such a way that when she hit me they made a substantial suction-like popping noise. It felt good too by the way.Cha-Ching--in chair massage.
My stylist, Hideki, came over just as I spotted a picture in the magazine I was reading that could serve as a good model, but I didn't point it out. He proceeded to cut, snip, clip, razor, weed, thin, and prune. Apparently when I had pointed out all those hot looking chicks with long locks and said "Make me look like this one", I apparently had said "Make me look the opposite", because the next time I looked up, all my length was gone. He was cutting my hair super short.
I did not panic. In fact, by the time he was through I really liked what he had done. I stood up, they brushed all the hair off of me and led me back to the sink. "Oh goody", I thought, "I'll relax through it this time". But alas, it was just a hand job (JUST a hand job? exclaim the men), and the salon lady rinsed my hair to get all the little pieces out. I was very happy about this as I used to ask all my stylists in the States to rinse out my hair after a cut.
I thanked Hideki, went to the checkout counter and braced myself. I was happily surprised to find out that all that massaging, shampooing, rinsing etc. was included in the price of the cut! I thanked them again, said I'd be back and left.
I ran home, changed into some fancy duds, put on make-up and went out to dinner. I got stopped by some Japanese who asked me if I was Brazilian.
I like my new do!
Go to this link at Mod's hair for pictures of Japanese short, medium and long haircuts.