My hair life is fraught with misery and despair.
I've paid £13 for a crappy haircut in London.
I've paid £50 for a crappy haircut in London.
My recent £38 crappy haircut in London (a self-esteem crippling pixie/shag/mullet hybrid) has been growing out for a couple months now, and I figured that while I was in Glasgow I might as well splash out on a crappy haircut, as it certainly would be less costly than its counterparts in England's capital have been.
And I stepped into Essensuals. Sure, there are Essensuals in London, but I was feeling good about this little salon on St Vincent, around the corner from Glasgow Central Station - I mean, how could I go wrong by picking the closest salon to the station where my Glasgow-bound train from London dropped me off . . . ?
I admit, this was a hasty choice, and I was fully prepared for the worst.
But what I got was the best.
I sat down, and my stylist and I pulled the pins that were previously hiding my haircut shame out of my hair, and she started running her hands through my hair (I swear with a baffled look on her face, unless I was imagining it).
"What would you like done today?"
"I got this awful haircut a while back, and I hate it."
"What do you hate about it?"
"Mostly the fact that it looks like a mullet."
And so after some more discussion, we came to the conclusion that we'd bob it. I was fine with this, although still not expecting much. But the stylist took her time as she snipped through my hair, many times over. She commented on the sheer thickness of my hair, yet she never took out a pair of thinning sheers (this is my litmus test of good stylists). The end result was fabulous. She asked if I wanted anything changed at the end, and I made a non-committal statement about my fringe looking a bit too perfect; she chopped into it to make it a bit more funky and undone.
Ultimately, I'm no longer embarrassed of my hair, and, for a Londoner at least, £40 for the amount of time I got in the cutting chair was a bargain.
Unfortunately since I can't afford the £120 train tickets every month or so, the hunt for a salon in London continues. read more