Free Hand Job with Every Haircut!!: Part 1 of 2

OMG!

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OK, OK, it’s actually a hand massage, but we did get your attention, didn’t we?  For those of you uninitiated in the rites of a high-end salon, we thought you might be interested to learn just what happens during such a visit.  Aside from hair being cut, of course.

On that note, don’t think “haircut.”  Think “salon experience.”  These posts will attempt to capture the salon experience, and let’s start at the end, with our conclusion: Everyman should treat his bad self to a salon experience at least once – if only to see how the other side lives.  And then feel free to go back to barber shops with red and white swirly poles.  If you can….

Our salon experience begins with a greeting from one of the fabulous hosts at the reception desk.  And an offer of a glass of water (sparkling or still); or better yet herbal tea; or best yet, wine (red or white).  Next, they take your jacket or shirt, trading it for an artsy-looking black smock.  Then you sit down, relax and wait for your stylist, nibbling tea cookies while watching a video about how the ingredients of the salon’s latest body butter are sourced.

Spoiler alert: the sourcing is relentlessly sustainable and fair-trade-able.  Leaving you wondering how you tolerated that toxic, translucent, blue comb-dipping sauce in your old barber shop all those years.  No third world children ever had their village saved by Barbicide, did they?

Back to the action.  Your stylist arrives and leads you to the chair to conduct a “consultation” about “what you want to do today.”  So much more grandiose than a mere haircut, no?  Once you decide between an 80’s Clooney look (the Caesar cut) and that 90’s boy band vibe you’ve always secretly coveted, you get to choose one of several aromatherapy options.  We favor a eucalyptus/mint mélange.  Your stylist asks you to close your eyes and take three deep breaths, and you are transported to another world.  Specifically, one where eucalyptus trees and wild mint grow together in perfect harmony.  Your stylist actually thanks you – shouldn’t it be the other way around? (well, on the other hand, this isn’t free, is it?) – and commences with a vigorous rubdown of your neck, shoulders and scalp, then spirits you away to a separate dark little alcove for a shampoo session, all in preparation for your cut.

Sidebar, gents.  Do you realize it has been 30 minutes since you entered Eden, that you have been greeted and/or touched and/or rubbed by one, if not more than one, attractive woman, that you have been wined, dined and aromatherapized, that you feel good about having supported barefoot kids whose names sound like clicks, and that not a single hair on your head has been cut yet?  By this point in a barber shop scenario, you’d have been duly butchered and kicked to the curb already!

It thus seems appropriate that we end this post without even getting to the haircut itself.  Stay tuned for the rest of the salon experience in a future post, beginning with the haircut itself…

by ManPossible