Mary Goes to the Salon: A Reflection
About once every three to four years, I like to do something that normal human beings do all the time, yet makes me feel like an alien observer that just landed on Earth. Today, that meant going to a salon to color my hair.
I make an appointment at a salon and actually go (which is big for me). I arrive at the salon and am immediately uncomfortable. It’s summer, so I’m not wearing make-up. I’m wearing a dress I bought at Gap about 10 years ago, and I haven’t *technically* combed my hair, a fact all the more shocking since I drove to the salon with my windows down. This is both My Normal and the answer to “What doesn’t belong at the salon?”
I am wearing a bra, though, assholes.
People start fussing over me, which makes me super uncomfortable. It’s that awful feeling I got about eight years ago, prior to my wedding, when I had my first and last pedicure. I just wanted to kneel down next to the man at my feet and tell him that we are equals, this is unnecessary/not the Raj, and please, allow me to paint this crap onto my own two stank-ass feet.
Back at the salon, the tiny Latina lady that washes my hair asks me if I have babies. Those of you who have met me know this question is the surefire way into my heart.
I simply say no, no babies. I have found that people generally don’t want to hear my reasons, and would prefer to simply pity me and my bad choices. She then tells me I should have babies because I’m beautiful and my head explodes, but I’m wearing four towels and a huge black bib, so luckily it doesn’t make a huge mess.
I know this is meant from a place of kindness, but her comment makes me want to run away and hide under the nearest rack of hair products I’d never buy (they aren't Target-brand).
I just laugh weirdly and offer a lame “Thanks.”
As two people begin piling weird chemicals onto my head, all in the name of Vanity (Insanity?), I listen to all the women of a certain age who inevitably seem to make up the clientele of any salon I go to. Their conversations with their stylists are fascinating to me, and, if I’m not an alien observer, I am Ebeneezer Scrooge alongside the Ghost of Hair Color Future. Having extended, serious conversations about the lowlights and toner of multiple hair dyes and their cost (the cost!) is what l have to look forward to. I kind-of want to vomit, but it may just be the smell of all the weird chemicals we are paying hundreds of dollars to put on our freaking heads.
Meanwhile, approximately 2 hours have passed and the salon employee is chattering away to me about toner. Why have I been here so long? Does it always take this long? What the hell is toner? I still don't know!
I’m exhausted and sweating under my four towels and bib.
The thought crosses my mind to rip all the clips, bibs, towels, and Reynolds aluminum foil from my head and run away screaming something profound and bad-ass. But, I’m neither profound nor a bad-ass, and it’s also time for these foil contraptions to come out anyway, after Middle Aged Lady #2 gets a rinse.
In the end, I have hair that is slightly lighter because of expensive, fake blond streaks. It kind of looks like my hair used to look in the summer, when I was a little girl and played outside all day with friends before phones, social media, and the world was super sad. Minus the Cold War. And apartheid. OK, so the world was and always will be sad and horrifying somehow. But as a child of the 80s in July, I just wanted to know when the ice cream man was coming.
In conclusion, I really think I might be an alien. And as an outsider, earthlings, I offer the following:
We should just be comfortable with who we are, whether that means gray hair or no hair or hair that turns more of a lovely poop brown each year. Don’t get me wrong, my hair looks nice, but I’m not convinced the time and money I invested it in this afternoon was meaningfully spent. If it’s your thing and it makes you happy, cool. #youdoyou. I’ll do me, though, and judge you for it.*
*My New Year’s Resolution is to be more compassionate. I am working on it, but it’s not going terribly well.
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