Hair Be Gone

One foot equals 12 inches equals 25 centimetres equals how much hair is gone from my head.

How is it that when it's on your head, hair is, like, touch-me sexy and glamorous, but the minute it leaves your head, it suddenly becomes dirty and gross? I mean, let's say you find a hair in your food. It's your hair, even. But you're all like, ew, gross, and maybe you even throw the food out. Why?

I ask this question, full of profundity and deepity, because there is a foot-long length of my hair lying on the bedroom floor, tied up with a rubber band on one end, and loosely braided. It's a bit weird. It's actually not that gross, but I'd like it to be gone tomorrow, and I've got the envelope all ready to send to Locks of Love. LoL is an organization that accepts hair donations in order to make free wigs for kids and adults with diseases that cause them to lose their hair. I donated my hair the last time I cut it, which was about a year and 9 months ago. I've been too lazy to get it cut since then, and since I had so much hair, it seemed a waste not to just cut it all off and donate it to a good cause.

I tried to explain this to the hairdresser that my work colleague recommended, but only got as far as saying, "First off, I need to cut of 25 centimetres," before getting the stare. I managed to get out that there were sick kids with no hair, and a group that made wigs for them (pantomiming as I went along), and though she looked as if she still thought I was crazy, she got out a rubber band and sliced off the 25 cm.

It was a little sad, first to feel my head become lighter and a breeze on my neck, and then to see my hair lying rather piteously on the counter before me.

But it wasn't as sad as when the haircut was finished and I looked like Prince Valiant.

I haven't cried about a haircut since I was 11 years old and my mother brought me to a fancy Korean hair salon in L.A. where they permed my hair some crazy-ass way and I hated it so much that I cried on the way to the car, and okay, I didn't cry this time, but I damn well felt like it, especially when my friend Myung-soo, who also got her hair cut, said, "Oh, you look so different! It makes your face looks smaller. And you look really young. But kind of sophisticated at the same time, because it's mannish."

Mannish?! Wah!

I met a couple people for dinner after the haircut, and though the girls were of course very nice and said it was cute, one guy said I looked like I was in high school. Lovely. High school girls here are not what you call high fashion -- they have to wear uniforms and not dye their hair, and if I'm not mistaken, they are not allowed to wear makeup or perm their hair.

Perhaps I should have gotten the perm that I was thinking about getting, but this salon was rather expensive. The hairdresser suggested getting a straight perm. A Magic perm lasts for 6 months, she said, but it freakin' costs 300,000 won (US$250), and all I could think was: "That's worth a roundtrip ticket to Japan!" So the hairdresser -- actually, hair designer is what they call them here -- suggested the cheaper version, which would last 2 months and cost about 100,000 won (US$82), but that still seemed an awful lot to little ole me, so I refused it all.

I think this may have upset the hair designer, because she clearly had a cut in mind, and as she ran her fingers through my remaining hair, she pouted, "Oh, it's going to be all wavy!" She sighed. "Well, can I at least cut and perm your front hair?" I assented, and she went to work.

She did seem like a very competent hairdresser, but I felt trepidation the whole while, since I'd said, "Just do your thing!" throwing precaution to the wind (a bad idea for a control freak like me). When all was said and done, I calculated the following:

Tools used: 8 (scissors, clippers, razor, hair dryer, hair iron, brush, perm solution, tin foil)
People used: 6 (hair washer, hair cutter, perm-solution-putter-on, perm-solution-dryer, hair dryer, assistant to hair cutter)
Hours taken: 3.5 (there were periods where I was waiting for perm to take, for the hairdresser to come back, etc.)

Price: Normally 30,000 won (US$25), but since our work colleague had introduced us to her hairdresser, it was knocked down to 20,000 won (US$16), which is an amazing price for all that work. The last haircut I paid for in DC was $50. Without a blow-dry.

More amazing, however, is that this is considered expensive in Korea, as in many places you can get your hair cut for 10,000 won (US$8) -- and not no cheap-ass Haircuttery haircut, but a nice, quality one.

However, all this cheapness aside, I did not like the hair. I would even go so far as to say I hated the hair. The hairdresser decided to go ahead with her envisioned style, and since I didn't agree to a perm, used a straight iron to straighten my hair. Naturally, it looked glossy and flat and beautiful after that -- except for the Prince Valiant/70s bowl cut style. Okay, it was slightly updated, but I still felt like I needed to go out and buy a doublet and tights, or possible bell bottoms and platforms.

Of course, the moment I washed it, my naturally wavy hair reasserted itself, and sulked through the next day as payment for having been ironed down the previous. I suspect that the hairdresser figured on me coming back to get the perm, because I have a suspicious mind, and maybe I will -- at a different and cheaper salon. Maybe at a different place I wouldn't feel like a total freakazoid for not getting a perm (every other woman in the place had one) and not wearing make-up (the hairdresser addressed that comment to Myung-soo, since she thought I didn't understand, but I answered with a winning smile immediately, "Yup, you're right!" while saying silently, "You know, I have better things to do than be judged by someone who thinks it's a travesty not to wear makeup").

I have a feeling, though, that those kind of hair salons don't exist in Korea. Friggin' culture of feminine beauty.

So maybe I'll just keep it the way it is. Everyone says I need to get to used to it, and that it looks fine, but you can't believe people, you know, not about haircuts. It's like everyone forgets that the nice thing about hair is that it always grows back. I kept telling myself that yesterday, but it's different when you're glumly staring at a nice fat braid of glossy, beautiful hair on the floor and looking like your brother circa 1979.