This morning I went for a long overdue haircut. I don’t even have the lockdown excuse, really, just a dislike of going for haircuts which makes finding a hairdresser in new cities especially difficult. I became fed up yesterday, and spent about 20 minutes looking for a hairdresser who could cut short women’s hair. I found instagram feed after instagram feed showing women with long flowing locks dyed shades of gold, and one of a hairdresser who clearly did short cuts and also had a large social media following. I looked up reviews and found that about 30% were full of praise for the cuts, and 70% were one star reviews noting, amongst other things, the filth of the place, the rudeness and aggression of the stylist and low likelihood of getting a cut one had asked for. So I ended up this morning going to someone quite close by, with 1 photo of a short cut and apparently recommended by a yuppie/hipster club nearby. It turned out to be a nondescript sort of place, with two men eating their breakfast, but the cut is decent though not at all what I asked for. I shall go back and be more insistent and clear. A pitfall of English occurred to me, namely the ambiguity of asking for hair ‘a little longer’ which for someone not very familiar with the language might well be understood as ‘less long’.
I definitely have more white hair than I used to, even the last time I had a cut which was (embarrassingly) in May or June.