Slightly Cursed

It’s not often that I go to a hair salon for anything other than a quick haircut. I’m cheap, I hate small talk, and I have a lot of kids. I don’t have time for that sort of thing. Plus, I could shave my head and it would take my husband two days to notice.

But sometimes you look in the mirror and just know that your eight dollar box of color isn’t going to cut it anymore. This was one of those days: my hair was in need of professional help. Grabbing the phone and dialing before I could change my mind, I called my hair stylist. Fate smiled upon me and granted me an appointment that afternoon.

My stylist greeted me at the door and walked me over to the chair. “So what are we doing to your hair today?” she asked, gently strangling me with a towel and cape. I reached up and loosened them so I could speak.

“Highlights and lowlights. Try and match the roots for the lowlights. Hopefully this will get rid of the gray.” I squinted into the mirror, glaring at the shiny, silver wires sticking up in every direction. “You might want to wash it first; I had hairspray and mousse in my hair.”

“Oh, that’s not a problem,” she reassured me. I was unconvinced. I expressed my concern about chemical interactions. “Don’t worry about it,” she was pretty firm this time. “I do this every day. Hair styling products aren’t going to cause any problems with your color. Just relax.” She looked mildly annoyed.

Then she set about her business mixing color and bleach, then painting chunks of my hair, wrapping them in foil. The hour crawled by, silence occasionally punctured by my stylist’s attempts at small talk.

It’s my experience that the less time a stylist spends talking to you the better your hair turns out. We didn’t spend much time chatting. “Okay! Let’s get you under the dryer. It’ll set the color faster.” Cool. I was all for that. Faster is always better!

I picked up a magazine and relaxed under the warm, dry heat blowing on my plastic-bagged scalp. One of the nail technicians brought me a fresh cup of coffee and a cookie. Approximately five minutes went by.

“It smells like something’s burning,” I mentioned to the older woman in the seat across from me. She shrugged; apparently she couldn’t smell it. The heat from the dryer was relaxing; I went back to reading the article and ignored the funky smell.

Now, I’m not sure how much longer I sat under the dryer, but I don’t think it was more than another five minutes. It was around then that I heard what sounded like steam. A second or two later, I felt it: someone obviously had sneaked up behind me and pointed a blowtorch at my head.

“Hey!” I flagged down the nearest person. I did my best to stay calm. “I’m on fire over here. Can someone get this thing off me?”

That boiling sound was getting louder. Another stylist turned to look at me when, all of a sudden, steam came pouring out of the plastic cap. “Seriously, I’m ON FIRE OVER HERE.” I opened the side of the now-melting plastic cap and let the steam out, burning myself in the process. By this time I wasn’t waiting around for help. That cap was coming off my head immediately.

Two stylists flanked me within seconds, grabbing my elbows, ushering me toward cold water and instant relief. Within minutes, my head was cool and no longer bubbly. Yay, me!

“I don’t know how this could have happened!” My stylist was beside herself. “I’m so sorry.”

“Probably you should have washed out the hairspray?” My head was tingling. I was certain there was nerve damage. I had visions of my scalp peeling away, leaving chunks of burnt flesh all over my mostly-black-teeshirt wardrobe.

“No, that wouldn’t have caused a reaction like this,” she insisted. “Do you have well water?”

“Yes, but I don’t see how that’s an issue.”

“Oh, yeah! I should have asked about that. Well water has a lot of bad chemicals in it that can cause this to happen.” She seemed pretty sure of herself.

“Um, it’s never happened before, and I’ve had well water for years.” I was annoyed by this time. I mean, seriously, well water causing this? “It can’t be the water.”

“That’s what it has to be. Your well water must have been contaminated by something that set the bleach off.” I didn’t bother to correct her. Or to mention my major in college. She rambled on, “It couldn’t possibly be anything else.” She planted her feet apart and stood her ground.

She had scissors. I backed away from the argument. Who was I to insert real science into her fantasy world?

Twenty minutes later, the ordeal was over. You’d think I’d have gotten a discount or something, right? Of course not. I paid and left. I never went back.

She was right about one thing though: the color turned out great. Still, it was years before I had my hair professionally colored again.

Minus the hairspray.

written by vic