Hair-raising experience... but it’s good to see salons open again

IDON’T know how I got one of the first appointments. I didn’t have any magic phone number or a particular ‘in’ with the salon. Maybe they just saw me walking past on my way to SuperValu as they were refitting the shop and realised I was an emergency case. In any event, when I was offered a 10am hair appointment on Monday morning, I seized it like a winning lottery ticket. The last time I’d had my hair coloured was on February 26. The absolute state of me.

So my first top tip for those of you still awaiting a precious appointment, is don’t drink a bottle of white wine the night before you have to wear a face mask for three hours. It’s really not pleasant. I presume, on previous visits to the salon, I have had occasion to quietly burp out the remnants of the night before as the stylist worked on my head, which probably wasn’t particularly festive for them either. But on Monday, with my colourist safely behind a face mask and visor and my own mask securely in place, my toxic fumes were all my own to enjoy. That, coupled with a brief bout of heartburn halfway through the process, meant that for a few minutes of my longed-for hair appointment, I believed I was going to die. Still, at least I wouldn’t go out grey.

So yes, it was kind of terrible. The alternative, though, was worse.

Two of my similar-vintage friends have decided to embrace the grey and are not returning to the colourist at all. Apparently, they feel liberated and empowered and some other words that weren’t invented when I was a child. And of course, most women being fundamentally two-faced, their other friends are giving them lots of support and encouragement and telling them they look great.

I am not, because they do not. They look old and I’ve told them as much. Still, they were nice friendships while they lasted.

I managed to resist the dreaded box dye during lockdown. When I did need to appear on a screen – either a Zoom one or a TV one – I had a couple of scarves that I wound into increasingly wide hairbands to cover the worst of the grey and I gave silent thanks for poor quality WiFi to blur out the remainder. That meant that when I presented myself at my salon on Monday morning, there was actually nothing to undo.

In fact, without colour and having only been washed once a week and never brushed or blow-dried for four months, my hair was in absolutely fantastic condition. It was just a pity about the rest of me.

I find a patch test oddly invasive, so I really didn’t enjoy having my temperature taken as soon as I walked in the door. What if it were raised because of the wine or the mask or the general stress of 2020? It wasn’t, and I was invited to pass go and collect my hand sanitiser reward.

THEN I settled in, mask on, and began reading the newspapers while my colourist mixed a giant batch of dye to cover my long roots. Ten seconds later, my glasses were completely fogged up, and so began a three-hour battle between breathing and seeing, with me trying to adjust both basic functions – shallower breaths, glasses pushed further down my nose – just so they could co-exist.

I really missed my cup of coffee. They can’t offer you one, obviously, but you also can’t bring in your own because you can’t lower your mask to drink it. I didn’t miss the magazines because I never read them anyway, but surprisingly, I did miss the low-level din of chattering women enjoying their downtime. It’s easier not to talk when you’re wearing a mask, and even though we were all delighted to be there, stripped of talk of holiday plans and idle gossip, it was a sombre enough scene. Everyone in the same boat, glad to be back but nervous about the uncertain future.

On the plus side, I didn’t swallow a mouthful of hairspray, something of a first for me in my long history with hairdressers. And because the people in my salon are lovely and decent, they didn’t raise their prices or even charge me extra for having to mix up a second batch of colour.

I came home delighted with my hair and read several breathless reports about how much other women enjoyed their first-day-back experience at the hairdresser. Like I said, two-faced.

It’s not normal and if you usually love getting your hair done – as I do – it’s not even nice. But it is necessary.

And because they recognised that when our largely male Government didn’t – and because they went out on a limb to secure their earlier reopening as a result – it’s truly brilliant to welcome back the unsung heroes of Irish hairdressing.