The Build Up

So there I am, on a Tuesday (the 22nd Oct), at 11.30am, drying off my dripping hair that I have just washed in anticipation of the arrival of the mobile hairdresser that I have booked to get my hair done ahead of my birthday. Originally I had a plan to go to a salon to get it done, but as the financial crisis previously mentioned had just hit, that plan had to be scrapped in favour of a budget option. So I had dyed my hair myself, something I had been doing since the age of about 14 when I discovered the joy that could be had by the use of a product know as "Sun-In". 

Using "Sun-In" was a rite of passage for many of the girls and boys around my age at the time - and what a heinous experience it was, each and every time. The principle of "Sun-In" was to effectively do the same thing to your hair as the sun does, gently lighten it. "Sun-In" didn't understand the word "gentle" and only just managed to grasp the concept of "lightening" but basically what was involved was spraying the product onto your hair, and then blasting it with a hot hairdryer. The product was just bleach in a spray bottle, pretty much. and as the fashion at the time was heading towards blonde highlights it was widely practiced by all who had clearly never placed an actual value on the skin on their scalp until AFTER use. That stuff hurt in ways I had never been hurt before and frankly have no desire to be hurt in again. 

Not only were you putting something on your head that on it's own would have caused more than an intense tingle and potentially a range of small but obvious blisters, but also then applying heat directly to it in order to hasten the process. I never actually lost hair as a result of this process but my scalp winces of it's own volition whenever I hear that particular brand name. It never made me as blonde as I wanted to be. I did however have the crispiest hair in all of the land. 

Anyway, so nowadays I'm a seasoned veteran of hair dye, having not seen my natural colour pretty much at all since those days - and I have trained the husband to do the bits at the back I can neither see nor reach. So that bit was all done the night before the mobile hairdresser was due. 

11.45 arrived. Hairdresser was now 15 minutes late for her appointment. My hair was in the process of drying and I was starting to panic a bit, something I am adept at. Then a text arrived "Sorry, can't start my car, can we re-arrange appointment?"  No, it could not be re-arranged, it had to be that day, I knew I was going somewhere and I knew the schedule meant it had to be that day. 

I took to Facebook in a blind panic and asked about on local community pages for anyone who was also a mobile hairdresser in case they could fit me in that day. Eventually a woman tagged in another woman who said she was indeed a mobile hairdresser and could come around 5 that evening. I gave her the address and went off to do something less boring than watching my own hair dry. 

When she arrived at 5, she did present as someone who was in the hairdressing industry. She had scissors and combs and a hairdryer and those clippy things that keep the hair out of the way, and a gown to cover clothes and one of those heavy rubber shoulder covers that I have no idea of the purpose of other than to remind you you have shoulders and prevent you being stabbed in them, should the scissors suddenly become unwieldy. She had shiny tidy hair, and although she seemed a little nervous I put that down to coming to a strangers house to cut their hair and tried to put her at ease. 

I had a photograph of the style that I wanted, which was quite a lot shorter than the one I was currently sporting, which was a shoulder length bob of sorts. Once she had put her belongings down I showed her the picture, and then watched as the colour in her face drained right out. 

There's an expression, not sure of the origins, and not sure I need or would want to know the origins, but the expression is "going the colour of boiled shit" that is often used in circumstances such as this. 

I don't even know what colour boiled shit is, but I'm going with a very pallid grey. 

Hoping it was just nerves and worrying about the lack of time I had left to get my hair done before whatever was going to happen happened, I encouraged her to give it a go. This was my first mistake. 

For two hours, she snipped. TWO. HOURS. I gleaned from the snippets (ha) of conversation that we exchanged as she pored over my head and pulled bits of hair out to see if they matched other bits, that she was relatively recently qualified as a hairdresser and had served no time in a salon other than the work experience she had undergone as part of her training. IT WAS TOO LATE BY THEN. 

And then she said, "Right, well I don't think its's exactly what you were looking for but I think its nice" and blow-dried it. 

Imagine, if you will for a moment, what might happen if Pat Sharpe (in his "Fun House" years) took a picture of a Christmas Tree to the barbers and said "I want my hair to look like that". 

Yes. I just needed a bit of tinsel to finish it off. I'm not sure if I entirely managed to cover the sheer horror on my face but at this point I just wanted her to get the hell away from my head and so I thrust some money at her and showed her out. I suffer with that most British of all character traits - "The inability to complain about inadequate standards of service". I just thanked her for fear of her getting her best sharpest scissors out and making it even worse. Suffice to say we did not exchange details for any future hairdressing needs I might have had.  

My son, whilst trying extra hard to keep a grip on his oh, so, aching sides, described the look as a "blonde Noel Fielding". I was unamused. I went and washed it again myself to try and see if I could style it into something slightly less mullety, but no. It just got even worse. I went from Christmas Tree "fresh" to Christmas Tree "having been through the shredder after it's functional use has expired". 

I did the only thing I could do. I went and got a tonne of hair wax stuff, and welded the whole thing down to my head in the style of a 1920's androgynous lesbian, save for the pinstripe suit and monocle. 

It wasn't much of an improvement but at least the kids weren't trying to decorate me and wrap fairy lights around my head. 

I was already in a scowling mess due to the financial catastrophe, but now I was skint AND looked two months too festive. Husband said I should just go to the salon the next morning and get it sorted but I refused as the cost of that would be at the cost of something else, like food. 

But the sense of impending doom about what was to come would just not shift. From previously simply being scared to step into the next part of my life, I was now actively scrabbling backwards to avoid it. You can't turn 40 with terrible hair. You just can't. It's not right.