How do I hate thee, Hair Salons? Let me count the ways.

(I published a previous version of this article earlier this week in which I tried to be measured and composed. Turns out, it did not nearly begin to cover the blood lust that I feel about my last visit to the hair salon. So--here is the 2.0 version. New. Improved. Rant-ier.)

1. You sell personal dissatisfaction.

I read an article in the newspaper a couple of weeks back about a woman's experience getting Botox. She described in several paragraphs what drew her interest in getting it done, but then, once she had; and realized she preferred her face with movement, suddenly the fact that that botox exists was the fault of 'male expectations of beauty'. I rolled my eyes and called bull roar on that conclusion. She got Botox because she thought she'd like to return to her face prior to the appearance of the horizontal forehead lines that everyone gets eventually. 'Male expectations of beauty' had nothing to do with it. Not once in the preambling paragraphs did she allude to any men who were telling her to iron out her skin. Let's be frank, it was her own expectations of how she wanted to look--her personal expectations of beauty--that prompted her to make the appointment.

I know because that is always what prompts my visits to the hair salon. Feeling personally dissatisfied and hoping that someone will know just the right colour, or just the right cut that will make me feel good. This is the chink in our feminine armour. This is the the deficiency that the beauty industry--not just hair, but make up and fashion--exploits in their marketing. If we just bought the right product, or got the right treatment, we will feel good about ourselves. It's never, ever the case. The post-purchasing high is so fleeting, it is almost non-existent.  So, when I accuse the hair salon of selling personal dissatisfaction, I also need to stop buying it. Because honestly? Washing my hair is usually the best thing I can to do improve my appearance; and that doesn't cost me nearly three hundred bucks.

2. Your magazines suck.

Who are these 'celebrities'? Does anyone know who any of these people are? Shouldn't there be some kind of standard as to what qualifies someone as a celebrity? Plus, if you're just going to publish pictures of people I don't know coming out of Starbucks, I might as well just look out the salon window. Can't we get a Canadian Living or a Bon Appetit? I could peruse some recipes. What about some long form journalism? I'm going to be sitting here for three hours. I could finally figure out what the Crimea Crisis was about.

3. My annual appointments cost more than my car insurance.

There are no words for this. Just imagine a guttural scream of rage and pain.


4. A lawyer drew up my will for the same cost as partial highlights and hair cut.

Anyone considering law school should maybe go to beauty college instead. More lucrative.


5. You also want me to tip.

I didn't tip the lawyer. I feel somewhat bad about that now in comparison.


6. You put up cutesy little signs promising a teeny price increase every damn time I'm there.

So help me, I will rip down your stupid adorable sign!


7. I get charged extra for tin foil and a tablespoon of dye.

Now, I am not an unreasonable person. I understand that people have different types of hair and one person might require more dye or more tin foil than another. But presumably other individuals require less dye and less time in application. Yet both pay the same base price. A price, that the salon sets which allows them to make a profit regardless of occasional outlier with super thick, long hair. But, at nearly one hundred dollars an hour, one would think the salon is still making a tidy profit, no?


8. I get charged extra for my hair being blown dry.

Gotta love that the cost of the haircut only includes the shampoo and cut because there is nothing like spending big bucks at the salon only to walk out with wet hair. The salon I went to years ago before being gouged by my current salon had the gall to charge $8 for the use of their conditioner. Not some special 'deep' conditioner. Just the stuff that you use so you can comb your hair out. No one asked if I wanted conditioner. Just wash, rinse, and run it down the drain.


9. I get charged extra for the toner that brings about the desired colour result.

Not to quibble, but if toner is necessary to bring my hair to the desired colour--shouldn't that just be included in the 'colouring' cost?


10. Your salon is kind of a dump. This isn't some Enya-infused spa experience. It reeks of chemicals and I'm wearing a borrowed robe worn a thousand times before and getting the downdrafts from a neighbouring hair dryer.

During the course of writing this article I've had a (non-Enya-inspired) epiphany. Hair salons are the mechanic shops of the female grooming sphere. They play off our fear of not being pretty to sell us services that this vehicle doesn't need. They add in charges that should come standard and imply that it would be a terrible risk to go without.

There's the truth that cannot be denied: Abstinence is the answer, folks.

11. Scalp 'massage'? Are you kidding me? Torturous. We are all just enduring it.

'Scalping' is actually a very applicable term for the whole experience.

12. 'Complimentary' hand massage? Ha! (And also, why?)

How about including the cost of the extra tablespoon of dye, the foils, the toner, the conditioner and the blow dry, and just leaving my hands out of it, hmm?


13. Every appointment lasts three hours.

If this has to be the case, next time let's set up a DVD and get through the Lord of the Rings Trilogy while we're at it.

14. You offer me tea or coffee as though that makes up for it all.

The mechanic plays that game, too.

15. It. Doesn't.

Well done, hair salon. I am now Cortes. I am burning the ships. I am going to make my way in the new world without you. Does the market offer nothing between a ten dollar box of hair dye and the exorbitant prices salons charge? Surely there must be something. I'm going to find out what.

Infamous Day

My September 11, 2001 began in the dark. All days have that distinction, but generally I prefer to wait for the sun to signal my rising. But that morning I awoke at 4:40 a.m. for my opening shift at Starbucks. I struggled to shake off sleep as I moved around in the dark quiet of my parents house, pulling on my Starbucks-approved khakis and black collared shirt and tugging my hair into a ponytail. By 5:30 I was punching in and getting the coffee started for the early commuters. Calgary is two hours behind New York City. I was weighing coffee grounds while people were boarding airplanes. Starbucks plays canned music, not the radio, and so we were insulated from the information until a customer came in after the sun had risen and said, "I can't believe you guys are open. Two planes have crashed into the World Trade Centre in New York. One of the towers has fallen. It looks like it was on purpose. It looks like the US is under attack."

News like that is strange. I didn't know what to do with it. I think I had heard of the World Trade Center. I had certainly seen its distinctive silhouette in movies without really knowing what it was. Skyline shots of New York always featured it prominently. I had definitely seen the teaser trailer for Spiderman starring Tobey Maguire in which he traps a helicopter in a web strung between the two towers.

"It looks like the US is under attack."

I didn't know what to do with the information, but I felt sick. Apprehensive. Someone had successfully launched a sneak attack on America. 

"A day that will live in infamy." 

That's how Roosevelt described the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941. September 11, 2001 was another infamous day. Who would do this and why? All of a sudden, the world was a different place and we were all in the dark as to why and how it had happened. I felt sicker still when one of our mentally ill 'customers' came in and said loudly and obnoxiously she was glad because she hated America. I had to walk to the back room because I couldn't stand to listen to her. I was nineteen and felt like a kid. Today I would have made her leave. 

Little did I know then that her raving would become a politically acceptable response in the decade that followed. My lunatic customer had a prescient sense of the coming zeitgeist.

My shift ended at 9:30 a.m. since it was also my second day of university. I walked across the parking lot to my parents Honda Prelude aware of the juxtaposition of the glorious morning of blue sky and golden leaves changing with the horror that was unfolding right then. A horror and uncertainty that had sent me--a distant Canadian--reeling. By the time I got home the second tower had fallen and the news was replaying the scenes of it crumbling. There were so many other scenes too. Scenes of people running through the streets of Manhattan as a tsunami of dust chased them. Shots of black specks falling from the towers that the horrified newscasters suddenly realized were people jumping to their deaths rather than stay in those towering infernos.

Other news, too. An explosion at the Pentagon that turned out to be another plane. All flights grounded over North America. Recordings of voicemails from passengers on the planes saying goodbye and I love you. A passenger revolt on Flight 93 that prevents the plane from being flown into the White House or the Capitol Building. 

I went to class that afternoon, but nothing was going on. The university administration had rolled TVs into the common areas and the twenty-four hour news coverage began in earnest. My memory of my first days in university is that of the image of the smouldering tower and the insane sight of a plane flying full speed toward a skyscraper. 

This morning looked just like that morning. Blue, blue sky. Green leaves lightening to a brilliant gold. September 11th. 

An infamous day.