“The Champagne’s for Will!” 
In Which I Have My Hair Done in a Posh London Salon

 
When I was in London as a twenty-year-old student, my hair care needs were simple: I colored it myself, and every now and then I went to a walk-in shop and had a bunch of it chopped off.  It generally looked cute, a feat which, along with my ability to drink beer in the middle of the day or eat even one chip (let alone a whole order), I can only attribute to youth and ignorance. Now that I’m a 33-year-old, gym-going, moisturizer-applying, gray-hair-plucking, fat-gram counting, nutritional-supplement-popping yuppie, my hair requires a great deal more care and feeding. Processes are performed, foul-smelling chemical potions are mixed, little bits of aluminum foil are interwoven, layers are inserted or removed. My hair has short- and long-term goals, its own budget, and a taste for hideously expensive shampoo. So naturally, a ten-week trip abroad presented certain challenges.

My hairdresser Laura and I began planning about three months before I left. Laura, an experienced European traveler, insisted that I not even consider having my hair done anywhere in Europe but London, and she frightened me with horror stories of shaved heads in Paris and green hair in Milan. Since it would be crazy to plan your European vacation around your hair care schedule, let us just call the fact that our visit to London coincided exactly with my hair’s six-weekly single-process-color-and-cut appointment (as opposed to its twelve-weekly all-over-color-plus-highlights-and-cut appointment) a “lucky coincidence.” As we arrived in London, my roots were getting dangerously long and dark, so time was of the essence.

On Tuesday, I asked the receptionist of our apartment building/hotel to recommend a place to have my single-process-color-and-cut performed. She suggested Jo Hansford in Mayfair. Big celebrities like Cate Blanchett and Camilla Parker-Bowles have their hair done at this salon, I later came to find out. After trying to call and make the appointment but balking at the apparent rapid-fire volley of questions regarding my hair, which she didn’t know from Adam, the receptionist gave me the number to call myself. So, I ended up speaking to a prime specimen of that peculiarly London creature I like to call the “Rude Shopgirl.” The RS, despite the fact that she is employed in a capacity wherein she has to interact with and serve people, actually hates every single member of the human race and doesn’t mind showing it.  There is nothing you can do to anger the RS more than to actually ask her to, um, do  her job. Her nose wrinkles, her overbite becomes even more pronounced, and her voice drips with contempt and impatience.

“So, do you want a tint or what?” my RS asked.

“Um,” I said, not really sure what she means by tint which isn’t really an American hairdressing term, “I need an all-over color, just at the roots.”

She sighed, exasperated already.

“So, is it a tint?”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that. I need a single-process, all-over—“

“Look, what is it you need?” She was clearly at the end of her rope.

“Um, my hairdresser wrote it down, she says ‘Clairol 20d with 20 vol—“

“I don’t want to know the formula,” she shouts, “Look, do you need foil put in your hair at all?”

“No, I—“

Another sigh. “OK, then what you want’s an all-over color. I suppose you want a cut as well.”

I finally get the appointment made for the next day.

Despite getting caught in a terrible downpour, at twelve-thirty sharp, I arrived at Jo Hansford and presented myself at the counter. The place was a madhouse. Everywhere, fabulous London matrons dressed all in black were having their heads prodded and dried by stylists dressed all in black.  I had been curious as to which of the three receptionists might have been my Rude Shopgirl, but it was immediately obvious that I would never be able to tell. They were all miserable. They sighed, rolled their eyes, wrinkled their noses, made faces behind peoples backs, slammed appointment books, and ignored the phone like a team of synchronized swimmers. I was told to sit down, which I did, meekly and silently, lest I anger any of them.

After a few minutes, I was ushered into a little room just off the main floor. A woman with a lovely hoarse English voice took my jacket (wet from the rain on the way over). She gave me a lecture on carrying an umbrella (“It’s British weathaaaah, daaaahling, British weathaaaah.”), and had me change into a long black robe. Then she asked me the question that I was asked at least (and I know I’m prone to hyperbole, but I swear to God it’s true) twenty times. “So, ‘oo’re you seeing today?” I told her I didn’t know, and she looked at me like she’d never heard such a strange answer.

Then a woman came to collect me and show me to a chair, and she asked me, “So, ‘oo’re you seeing today?” I told her I didn’t know, and she looked at me like she’d never heard such a strange answer. Apparently, it was the question on everyone’s mind, as I heard nearly every other client being asked this by a parade of salon employees, but all the sleek, gorgeously hoarse, stylish London women who sat around me knew who they were seeing. Only I, the British-weathaaaah-bedraggled, quacky-accent American, was in the dark. I know that the three receptionists had the information about which stylist everyone was seeing, but I guess all the other employees in the salon were too afraid to ask them.

Another woman came up to me as I sat and asked me, “So, ‘oo’re you seeing today?” I told her I didn’t know, she looked at me like she’d never heard such a strange answer, walked over to another woman and whispered in her ear. Then this woman walked over to me, and asked if my name was Lisa. I said it was, and this woman turned and shouted to yet another woman across the room, “The champagne’s for Will.” I can only assume that champagne referred to the color of my hair and not my effervescent personality, which had definitely been cowed into submission in all the excitement. But at least I had an answer for the five or so other people who asked me while I was waiting.

Much to my relief, the mysterious Will finally arrived. He was very nice, the kind of guy you’d more expect to be working in a bar  than in a Posh London Salon. The formula Laura had so carefully dictated proved useless—he ignored them except to admire my Palm V, then flipped through my hair, saying, “Mmmhmm, mmhmm, yes, easy, easy.” As he walked away, he asked, “So, ‘oo’re you seeing for your haircut afterwards?”

Once we got that straightened out (turns out it was “Paul”), Will set about applying color to my roots. He seemed to be doing a good job, but it was like he was working in slow motion. Reeeeally slow motion. It wasn’t like I had anywhere to be, but this process usually only takes about 15 minutes—he managed to stretch it out to over half an hour. During this time, we chatted, as hairdressers and clients are wont to do. He asked me about my travels, I told him. When I mentioned that we’d been to Amsterdam, his face brightened.

“Ah, Amsterdam,” he said, putting, like about a 1/100^th of a milligram of color on two of the hairs on my head, “Now that’s a town. Brilliant city, innit?”

“Yeah,” I said, “It was great, we really liked it.”

“Oh, I’ll bet you did,” he said. He winked at me in the mirror.

“Um, yeah, we did,” I said, figuring he was going to ask about the hash bars, “We had an apartment there and everything. We really got to know the city.”

“So,” he asked, daubing at another three hairs on my head, “D’ja go to any of those live sex shows?”

A pause, while my nice Southern upbringing kicked in.

“Why, no,” I said, brightly, as if he’d asked whether we’d gotten to the Van Gogh museum, “No, we didn’t.”

“Aw, you should have done. They're brilliant.”

“Really? Huh! Interesting!”

So I was treated to the story of how Will had taken this girl to Amsterdam, and how she’d suggested they go to one of “those live sex shows.” Will hadn’t been prepared to propose this particular activity, but “like any bloke would,” he’d agreed. Turns out, it was “really, really surreal.” The, um, performers, were, um performing, all the while having conversations about which café they were planning on going to once the um, performance was over. After the show, though, things between Will in the girl turned sour. She didn’t enjoy spicy food, she didn’t enjoy seafood, she didn't like beer, she complained about everything. For Will, apparently, the complaining outweighed her willingness to attend a live sex show, and, he assured me, it was all over between them.

After the story and the application of my hair color, Will left, and that was the last I ever saw of him. I waited. And waited. And waited some more. I was beginning to panic, picturing the white blonde roots that were surely developing , when someone I assume was the shampoo girl came and took me away. She asked me who I was seeing, who I had seen (I knew! I knew!), then washed my hair. Really, really slowly. Then I was led to another chair, where the comb girl combed out my hair (first asking who was cutting it) really, really slowly. Paul-the cutter-arrived, along with a girl whose job it was to hold part of my hair on top of my head while Paul cut or blew-dry the rest. Really, really slowly.

When it was finally all over, I had to approach the reception desk to fork over twice as much as I usually pay (which I guess was fair, since it took four times as long to do). The rude shopgirls were in full force, sighing bitterly at having to run a credit card through the machine. They were so nasty when I asked to buy some shampoo and conditioner, that I actually told them to forget it.

The result? Well, you can see a picture of me later on in the day. As Rob said when he met me afterwards, “It looks pretty much the same.” And so it does.

--Lisa

  
Later that day on the Hampstead Heath