Tag Archives: hairdressing

Hair cut in Italy

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Sometime in the 1980s, I was visiting Italy in order to see my sister who lives in the Emilia Romagna region. I landed at Milan and rented a car.

HAIR BLOG

The SEAT vehicle which I hired was tiny and very basic and seemed to lack many items that can be found in other low-cost cars. However, I benefitted from it because it did not consume fuel at a high rate. This was lucky because in those days fuel was extremely expensive in Italy as compared with other countries in Europe. In those days, the petrol price in the UK had just exceeded £1 per GALLON (4.5 litres). In Italy, at the same time, petrol was available at about 1600 Lire per LITRE, and the exchange rate was about 1570 Lire to the Pound Sterling. Nevertheless, I ‘beetled’ around Italy visiting various friends in different places. 

Driving practices in Italy differed from those in the UK. One day, I gave a lift to some Italian friends. At each village or small settlement on the Strada Statale (main road, not a motorway or highway) there were traffic signals at intersections. At one of these, I began to slow down because I could see that the signal was about to turn red. My friends said:

“What are you doing? Why are you slowing down?”

“The signal is turning red,” I replied.

“Don’t be silly, speed up. Don’t let the signal hold us up!”

I cannot remember what I did, but I have lived to tell the tale.

A day or so before I was due to meet my sister, I decided that I ought to have a haircut in order to look presentable. I stopped in a village, where I had spotted a barber shop as I was driving past.

I entered to smart looking salon, and sat amongst three or four other gentlemen awaiting the caring hands of the barber.Eventually, I was invited onto the barber’s throne. I explained what I wanted as best I could with my very rudimentary Italian. However, the barber, a true experienced professional, knew what was needed. 

He began rummaging around in the mop of hair on my head, and then suddenly stepped back as if he had been confronted by a deadly poisonous snake. He raised his hands high above his head, and shouted:

“Forfora”

The other men in the salon shrank back, one or two of them hiding their heads under the newspapers that they were reading. I sat, amazed and wondering about the meaning of ‘forfora’ and why it had caused such alarm.

Then it dawned on me. The barber had discovered dandruff in my hair. He explained something to me that I worked out meant that he needed to apply a special treatment to my hair.  I told him to go ahead. He rubbed some oily liquid into my hair. After a moment, I felt a strong burning sensation. It felt as if something was burrowing down the roots of my hair and into my scalp. As it worked, I thought that whatever had been applied felt as if it was strng enough to kill anything. I just prayed that my hair would not fall as a result of this terrific chemical onslaught.

After a short time, my head began to feel normal, and the barber carried out my haircut. I do not remember how much my cut cost, but I do remember having to pay an extra 5000 Lire for the special treatment.

I doubt that I will ever forget the Italian word for ‘dandruff’, but how often I will make use of this knowledge is questionable.

 

Photo: a hairdresser in Istanbul

Bad hair day

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When I began practising as a dentist, I worked in a small town in north Kent. My working week stated on Monday afternoons. So, Monday morning was available for me to do whatever I wanted. I used to have my regular haircuts on Monday mornings at a barber shop owned by Dave. He often cut my hair and always did a good job.

One Monday morning, I entered Dave’s establishment and as Dave was not around I had my hair trimmed by a young lady. She did a good job but handled my head roughly. She knocked my head around as if it were one of those balls that boxers use for training. I am exaggerating a bit, but there is no denying that having this lady cutting my hair was a stressful experience.

Some hours later, I rang Dave to tell him about my recent visit to his shop. I wanted him to know that if his assistant persisted in treating customers the way she did to me, he would lose business. Dave apologised, and then told me that his young lady had had a bd weekend, a row with her boyfriend. 

I suppose that Monday was what people call a ‘bad hair day’ for me.

 

Bad hair day: a bad day : a day with many problems, annoyances, etc. (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bad%20hair%20day)

Fear of flames

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Coiffure_500

” I have always been filled with fear at the prospect of any physical intervention on my body. This may come as a surprise to anyone who knows that I am a dentist, who makes a livelihood from trying to assist people who fear my interventions, but this is the case.

For example, from an early age, I have feared going to the barber, an experience that most people enjoy. I am not certain whether this fear of having my hair cut originated from hearing the tale of the barber of Fleet Street, who used to deliver his unsuspecting customers to the basement of the butcher next door, in order for them to be turned into sausage meat. I still cling onto the armrests of the barber’s chair, just in case… Or, did my fear arise from the worry that I might be injured or infected by the scissors or the cut-throat razors, which are still used today?

There is yet another possible source of my ‘pre-barber angst’. This dates back to the 1950s, when I was less than ten years old. In those days, I used to be taken to a large hairdressing salon in Golders Green Road, where Mr Pearce attended to my coiffure. The salon was filled with a nauseous odour, that of people having the split ends of their hair singed with the flame of a lighted taper. What, I wondered, would have happened had Mr Pearce begun to singe my hair? Would my head have erupted into a fiery ball? Well, this never happened. My beloved, but neurotic, mother would never have allowed anyone to approach my hair with a flaming taper. Indeed, as a child, I was never allowed to hold a box of matches, even safety matches, because, my mother was concerned that it might have spontaneously burst into flames. She should have known better. Her grandfather manufactured matches in South Africa. “

 

This is a short extract from my book “Going without the Flow“, which is about the fear of surgery. It is available on Amazon, Bookdepository.com, Lulu.com, and Kindle

Hair today, gone tomorrow

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The fastest haircut that I have ever had was in San Francisco (USA) in early 1995. The barber shop was staffed entirely by Chinese men, who were playing cards, maybe gambling, when I entered. Six minutes later, with my hair beautifully cut, I had already paid my bill. The barber could not wait to get back to his card game.

The slowest haircut that I have experienced (or, rather, endured), was in London. My wife suggested that I tried a salon near Holborn, which was also a training centre for budding hairderssers. For a modest fee, a student would cut one’s hair under the watchful eye of the professional hairdressing teacher. I was not against the idea as I had once had an excellent student cut at the London School of Fashion.

I don’t know whether the man allotted to practice on my hair was a complete novice or extremely nervous or just totally incompetent, but the experience was tedious to say the least. The appointment begun at 2 pm and was supposed to finish by 5 pm.  Throughout the afternoon, my student seemed to do little more than gather up swathes of my hair in his comb and then contemplate them. Very occasionally, he would snip a few strands of hair without much conviction. The afternoon wore on. 

By 4.45 pm, when all the other haidressing students had completed their tasks, my hair was much the same as it was at 2 pm. The teacher wandered over to me, pushed the student out of his way, and completed my haircut very competently by 5 pm.

Since then, I have had one more supervised student, which was performed by a very competent student, but she took much longer than an experienced hairdresser. Even if I have to pay more, I prefer my ‘short, back, and sides’ to be performed as rapidly as possible.