The Beauty Salon

May 23rd, 2010 - I am not a fan of going to the beauty salon. It takes a lot of time, it costs a lot of money and it is usually a lot of pain. In fact the only good thing I can think to say about it is, the person/persons who torture me are very nice, very good at what they do, and take me at 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. They also know I am not one for chitchat, so get in there, rip a layer of skin off, file my nails until they bleed, and burn my scalp with the strongest chemical you have that 'covers' the gray.

I liken going to the beauty salon like going to a dentist. It is going to hurt, you know you have to do it, and when you are finished you are already dreading the next appointment. As I stumble into the salon barely aware, my person, let's call her Sally, to protect the 'guilty', starts by placing a black plastic cape around my neck pulled so tight I can barely swallow. She always very nicely asks if it is too tight, and unless I am gagging and my eyes are popping out, she pulls it a little tighter. She starts by looking at my hair, roots and ends, shakes her head and says, "don't worry I think I can fix it". That's good news since it has only been six weeks since the last time you 'fixed it'. Fifteen minutes later I have silver foil all over my head and black goop dripping down the sides of my face, and I smell worse than a dirty dishrag in need of washing. In the meantime she has turned on the torture pot. Yes, the wax. Picture the screen from 40 year old virgin and know that instead of on my chest (thank god) she is going to put it on my face, to remove that barely visible, ever so blond 'stache' (which she disagrees with and says, "Mar you are Italian, it has got to go') and to 'shape up' the eyebrows, which at my age are mostly eyebrow pencil and very little hair. As she places a large grin on her face, looks at me sweetly and says, "hey Mar, how are you feeling". Before I can answer she rips the wax, takes off half my lip, and starts the attack on the eyebrows. Just when I think I am done she takes out the 'tweezers' and for five minutes she fixates on the one tiny hair that the wax left behind. Now we are ready for the rinse, conditioner, cut and style. Don't like the rinse, hate having to lay with my head back for what seems like an hour, don't like using product, so conditioner to me is like putting greece on your hair, hate the tugging and pulling of a razor cut, and the styling involves even more products, several heated items, one which has left a huge burn on my hand (but that's another story) and hair spray sprayed until a new ozone layer has formed. While all this has been going on, my other person has been happily sharpening his tools to ready himself for the 'pedi' and 'mani'. For the next two and a half hours I wil be picked at, filed, brushed, and subjected to heating machines to 'dry' the nails, before I am finally deemed 'done'.

As a take a good look at myself in the mirror I think, not so bad. I can wash the hair out, the burns will disappear after a couple weeks, the red line above my lip with fade after a couple hours, and although my feet are ugly, my flip flops are adorable. Two hundred and Sixty-five dollars later, plus tip, I am on my way. Feeling good, although sore, and knowing I am safe for another six weeks.