Kaonashi Ga Suki

Last Friday I went to get a haircut. Classes start tomorrow (GASP!) and I wanted to look like a human for the first day of school.

I like and I dislike going to the salon. I like going because it’s a relatively inexpensive way to get pampered. I don’t know about you, but it always feels relaxing when the stylist washes my hair. The tingly sensation her fingers make on my scalp as she scrubs it feels really nice. It’s like getting a little bonus massage.

In Japan, the stylists really do give their clients a full on, 5-minute head massage. It’s so awesome. Haircuts tend to be more expensive there as a result, (as is nearly everything else), but I think that the price is worth the massage. I remembered some of my students had mentioned the massage that comes with haircuts, but I didn’t think much about it, so when the woman started massaging my head as I sat at the wash station, I was happily surprised. At first she scrubbed my scalp like any American stylist would do, but then she started actually massaging my scalp. At first I was wondering what was taking so long with the scrubbing (was my hair really dirty or something?), then I realized that she was indeed massaging my head. I felt her fingers gently but firmly kneading in my head, and it felt…wonderful. What is it about someone touching your head or running their fingers through your hair that makes you fall asleep? Perhaps it stems from our days of infancy, when our mothers would sometimes gently stroke our hair to help us fall asleep. Anyway, I fought the urge to fall asleep on the chair. Oh boy, I wanted to fall asleep so badly. Her massage was so relaxing. But considering I had to be at work in the next hour and a half, not to mention not wanting to insult the stylist, I forced myself awake.

Another reason I like going to the salon is because the stylist can do my hair for me. Generally, stylists do a better job than I do in blow drying my hair and styling it because they have a better perspective of my head. They can see the back of it and can get their arms in better positions to properly style my hair with very little effort. I hardly ever do anything creative with my hair, partly because I don’t have time in the morning, and partly because I’m lazy. I have no interest in waking up an extra hour each morning to do my hair when I can spend that extra hour sleeping in. Usually I just put it in a ponytail or clip, and off I go!

The thing I dislike about going to the salon is not really directed at the salon but more of at myself. I have very thick hair. No, you don’t understand. I HAVE VERY, VERY THICK HAIR. Every stylist whom I ever visited had said the same thing to me: “You really have a lot of hair.” Duh. Like I couldn’t figure that out. But is it really so uncommon to have such thick hair? I always seem like an oddball whenever stylists would make this comment. I know it doesn’t seem like a big deal, but one main problem with very thick hair is that very few hairstyles suit me. No matter what style I choose, I still end up with helmet hair. I can’t wear my hair very long because it becomes heavy and I look like a cavewoman. I can’t have it chin length because I end up looking like Darth Vader. I can’t wear it extremely short because instead of the cute pixie look like Halle Berry, and Demi Moore in Ghost, I look like a boy.

I’ve asked nearly every stylist I’ve ever gone to for advice on how to manage my super thick hair, and they always recommend all these different kinds of shampoos and conditioners, but I’ve never really found them to work well. During one fateful visit to the salon, I finally found the secret to getting silky looking, thinner hair: blow drying. But you see, the stylist didn’t just blow dry my hair. She blew dry it for about an hour, doing each section of hair over and over again. It was as if she were Rumplestiltskin, spinning straw into gold. My hair had never looked so magnificent. It was so smooth, so silky, and not thick! I was amazed. So it IS possible to fix my hair. But it took her about an hour to do it! I think she now has tennis elbow as a result

Another problem with my thick hair is that it’s very coarse. I envy other Asian women with their nice, long, silky, smooth, thin hair. Often times I’d be at church looking at the backs of their heads thinking, “Why can’t my hair be like that?” It’s not a Filipino thing, because other Filipina women don’t have the same problem as I do. How the hell do they do it? Good genes? Do they blow dry their hair for an hour every day? I just can’t do that. As I said before, sleep is more important to me than my hair. Yet I gripe about the state of my hair.

At my recent visit to the salon, I once again bought some expensive bottles of some sort of special shampoo and conditioner that’s supposed to work. If I use it in the shower as regular conditioner, and as a treatment pack (leave it on my hair for a couple of hours), in time my hair will supposedly become nice, silky smooth, and thin. To be honest, I doubt it’ll work and I’d have wasted my money yet again, but I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

hair, salon, blow dry, cut, classes