Throughout life I have maintained strictly monogamous relationships with those persons permitted direct scissor-access to my bonce.
It started from birth. As soon as my wispy white-blonde curls were long enough for a teeny trim, my Dad, being good at everything, and naturally nifty with the shears, took on the mantle of chief coiffeur in our house, only retiring the role as mine, perhaps with some relief, when I left home at seventeen. It should be noted here that my mother’s department was plaits, buns and ponytails, a significant role requiring similarly meticulous creative skills. They make an excellent team.
When I was about six, a little basket of Easter gifts and goodies delivered by the EB included a darling pair of orange-handled paper cutting scissors. My first. A week or so later my mother looked me dead in the eye and enquired, “Emma-Jane, have you been cutting your hair?” I answered guiltily, “Nope” Who was I kidding? She had discovered clumps of neatly trimmed blonde locks in my waste paper bin. Secretly I’d got a massive hit from the sensation of sharpened steel slicing through hair shafts. Was it a sign of things to come?
As a student in York, I went from classy shoulder length blonde bob, thanks Daddy, to punk pillar-box red pixie cut, when the slightly deranged, but brilliantly talented Ashley would cut and colour my hair, according to his wildest whims, for free, in exchange for glamorous photoshoots and entries into the Wella Colour Competition. We never won, but it was fun.
There was a brief affair with Jordan at Pure, and, while he cut my hair brilliantly, it was really his delectable Aveda products that kept me coming back for more, until nursery fees and Petit-Filous became a more pressing drain on the budget.
I’m still in touch with Theresa, the Sassoon-(himself)-trained marvel who kept my crop cute for years, setting up her mobile cut and colour station in my kitchen every six weeks or so, while the children were little. But she moved away to Devon. (Rude) and I was bereft.
Latterly, when I grew my hair longer, like everyone else, Ruth’s skilful cuts, solid friendship and generosity got me through the tough years of pandemic, and divorce. I once donned a ski-suit and trekked across a frozen wold, through waist-high snowdrifts to her cosy hill-top farmhouse kitchen, for a cut (but mainly for some comforting human contact). Once, at my lowest ebb, she even refused payment. I cried with gratitude. But now I live too far away from her capable scissor-wielding hands for a drive-by trim, let alone a snowy trek. I miss our heart-to-heart chit-chat, and my mop-top has somewhat lost its edge.
Did you know that, according to a survey by hairtrade.com, the average British woman spends up to £40,000 in their lifetime on cutting, colouring and styling at the hairdressers? I fell off my high-chair at that statistic.
But the Hairdresser/Client relationship goes deeper than the simple transaction of snips for silver. As their fingers comb through your hair, a trusting bond is forged, and if you’re lucky, like I have been, it develops into a friendship with benefits. In them you find a confidante, a therapist and a personal cheerleader, one who tackles your unkempt barnett, catches you up on news, commiserates your woes, offers words of wisdom and has a giggle with you while simultaneously achieving a mini follicular metamorphosis that leaves you invigorated with a renewed sense of self esteem. It sounds perfectly ridiculous when I put it like that. But if you know, you know. So I guess they’re worth it.
Occasional one night stands with walk-in appointments for a tenner have recently left me feeling empty and unfulfilled. The resulting woefully limp basic haircut, not dissimilar to that of a spinster maths teacher from the early 1980’s, has done little for my self worth.
Necessity is the mother of invention, and circumstance has motivated me to go it alone and become my own hairdresser. I’m not so great at all that ‘cheerleader’ stuff, and the gossip is scant, but I can always get a last minute appointment. Late night scissor-happy bouts of chopping and bleaching are often triggered by a periodical imbalance of hormones, or sometimes a glimpse of a candid and deeply unflattering photograph featuring my lacklustre and dishevelled bird’s nest noggin. Boredom plays a big part too. I find my hands compulsively, (or is that convulsively?) reaching for the pink zippered pouch that holds the family kit of combs, clippers, kirby grips and crochet hooks (never discarded from home highlighting kits). With an innate ‘can-do’ attitude, and a foolhardy willingness to repeatedly freeze-frame an instructional YouTube video about layering, I balance a mirror on the bathroom windowsill, feign confidence, and work arse-about-face wielding a sharp pair of pointy scissors perilously close to my eyes and jugular. It’s a thrilling gamble.
My beautiful daughter’s last, somewhat underwhelming salon experience was a brush with fame (pun intended) when hairdresser-to-the-stars, Mark Hill, a local in these parts, spent a good few hours pawing and fawning over her stunning locks. He snipped off a tiny bit, and then, curling the whole lot into stiffened ringlets he achieved the ‘Ben Atkinson’s Action Horse Look’. Poldark would have happily paid 30 shillings for her at market.
Then, last month, long overdue a proper trim, and seized with the same devil-may-care attitude that comes with pre-menstrual madness, she let me, and my crappy little scissors from Boots, loose on her crowning glory in what became known as ‘The Night We Don’t Speak Of’. There was just. So. Much. Hair. I think the episode actually triggered my first proper menopausal hot-flash. Eventually, she went to bed saying bravely, ‘No…don’t worry, it’s fiiine..’ but I think she was fighting tears. The next morning, however, she bounced out of bed to find that her new ‘layers’, while a little skew-whiff and sporadic, looked rather good, edgy, even, and we were friends again.
In a recent WhatsApp group-chat with some fabulous fellow females, one of them confessed that they had been robbed, in broad daylight, at the salon, to the tune of £200 for a cut and half-head of highlights. It happens. I now relate to that annoying character from ‘Goodness Gracious Me’ who will say, “Why pay that, when you can do it yourself, at home, for FREE?!” My skills are steadily improving. They say it takes 1000 hours of repetition to become an expert in your craft. I’m up to about 100, but it’s not always about the end goal, is it? The process can be rewarding in itself, and, hey, I might have saved myself enough money to invest in a very sexy looking tool that the professionals call ‘a feather-cut razor’.
I’ve seen the videos, how hard can it be…?
Note: The author recognises the essential role that professionally trained hairdressers play in society, and in no way does she advocate the cutting of one’s own hair without proper training and equipment. (Although it would be a right laugh if we all tried it, at least once!)
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