AT THE SALON

New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 554, 3 February 1950, Page 20

AT THE SALON

| Written for "The Listener" |

by

M.

B.

HERE comes a time in every woman’s life when she feels the urge to Do Something About Herself. In me this takes the form of having my existing hair cut off in the hope of starting afresh with something glossier, curlier, kempter than the last. Last year the annual compulsion seized me as I was cycling through the main street of a provincial town and I was forced to turn in at an, establishment which boasted seven chairs, no waiting. As the gentleman in charge didn’t do women’s hair I came out with an Eton Crop. This year I rang the local salon. "Tomorrow, at 3.30?" suggests the voice. "No, I want it now." "Monday at 4.15?" "Too late,’ I shriek. "Thursday fortnight at 10.30," announces the voice, and rings off, By Thursday fortnight the urge has passed. I have developed doubts. Shall I break the appointment? But on what grounds? A prior engagement is unlikely, a cold in the head no excuse. I go. As I sit before the mirror at the "Goldilocks"? I realise that I have been quite right to come. Any change must be for the better. Deftly, contemptuously, the beautician unpins my favelled braids and watches as they subside snakily to my shoulders. "You want it cut?" she asks dubiously, Can it be that she admires it as it is? "Actually," I confide, "I rather like it this way, with the braids on top." (She herself wears braids on top, but the effect is somehow different.) "And my husband . . ." "Men," she gurgles, "are so ridiculous. Obviously one needs regular, almost classic features, to wear braids successfully. Though in your case I scarcely know what to recommend. I feel these new short haircuts are essentially for the younger woman."

She clacks her scissors thoughtfully, lifts a lock, eyes it with distaste and tosses it aside. "Actually, it’s very difficult to do anything at all with this thick, wiry hair." I take courage from the fact that I have just heard the assistant in the next cubicle telling her client that it is quite impossible to do anything with this thin, soft hair. "T’ll have it cut very short, please, short at the front and longer at the back. And I'll have a bang." The operator says nothing, but a slight smile lifts the corners of her Desert Flamed mouth. She seizes a frontal lock, drapes it across my forehead and loops it up. I look more than ever like an extra from the Snake Pit set.

"IT think not," she says. My morale is ebbing. She presses home her advantage, beginning on a bright professional note. "Your hair is what we call in the trade real problem hair. Perhaps a real good thinning? Tell me, do you usually have it thinned?" a "Yes, but it grows again." "Ah." She broods darkly. "What about a really good rate. eed and a toupee?" ‘I suggest. "I scarcely: think the condition warrants it-yet. Though I am at a loss to account for its lack-lustre, neglected look(Elementary, my dear Goldilocks.) "_+ynless, of course, it is the symptom of a general breakdown. The hairand, of course, the skin-are excellent barometers of the’ bodily condition." I peer anxiously at The Skin. It has a dead, enervated look. I feel, awful. "Not but there’s still Hope. I’ll tell you what I'll do for you. I'll give you one or two reconditioning treatments, and later a good perm. Then you won't need to have it cut at all." "But I happen to want it cut. In any case, I don’t believe in permanent waving. It ruins the natural curl." "I couldn’t agree with you more in the case of a good natural wave. But in Moddom’s case the wave is so slight-" Touchée. "I just want it cut," I blurt, "Curly-cut." HE shrugs and begins, saws impotently and calls for a new pelt of wire-cutters. Snip, snip, snip. "Ouch!" Blood drips from my right lobe. Touchée again. My opponent is all apologies. She explains that she had no idea my ears were so far down. "Most unusual." Her tone (continued on next page)

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implies that Lombroso would have some interesting comments. Of course, she continues, it’s a great mistake to let the hair grow so long. It makes the operator’s task so much harder. "IT find," I retort, "that I have better things to do with my time than waste it in beauty parlours." "Believe ‘me," says Goldilocks, "you are making a Great Mistake. A Woman’s First Duty is to Make the Most of Herself." Then she relinquishes the catechismal tone in favour of the yearningly evangelical. "I could do so much for you if you would but put yourself unreservedly into my hands. But-" she shuts her eyes and takes a couple of vicious snips ‘"__T fear you have not the right attitude. Then, too, it’s largely a matter of bones. Good Bones are the Basis of Beauty." I eye the operator’s bones, but they are hidden deep beneath the well-nour-ished layers of. complexion. "And tell me," I ask sweetly, "what do you do about bones?" (Ho, infidel, I have thee on the hip.) She shrugs. "In your case I’m afraid nothing. But we have a new electric ray treatment that completely revitalises the bone cells, Unfortunately, it can’t alter the facial contours." T last it is finished. Deftly she gathers up the’ folds of the enveloping sheet and tips the trimmings down the back of my neck. The cubicle resembles the scene of a cat-fight. It is easy to see-who won since all the tufts of hair on the floor are mine. The operator has the grace to be a little ashamed of her easy victory. "It may," she suggests, "look a little better after it’s washed. Try fiuffing it

up, like this.""’ She runs a comb through it. The hair crackles back at her viciously. She retreats. "I’m afraid I find your hair rather hard to manage." "Think nothing of it-so do I. But then,- of course, I’m only an amateur." (A. hit, a palpable hit.) I shroud my animated dishmop in the scarf I have presciently brought for the purpose and sail out of the salon, briefly borne on a wave of exultation for my Pyrrhic victory. It’s not even an urchin cut, I reflect sadly as I trudge home to face the jeers of the family. Merely a Housewife’s Ha very: labour-saving, requires little no ironing, simply rinse out overnight, wrap in a dry towel and shake well in the morning. But there is consolation in the fact that I won’t have to go through that for another twelve months.