Argghh - what is it with hairdressers?!

Despite my best efforts at communication, I've been scalped by a salon and put through a strange series of dye pots.

I must confess that I really do hate going to the hairdressers - I consider it worse (and far more traumatic) than going to the dentist.

Actually, I like my dentist, old enough to be my father, nose and ear hair and all - he's just one of the loveliest men on earth. Whereas hairdressers? They just ignore me and leave me beached on the desert island of bad cuts and hair colours that do not suit me...

...without any music, knitting or even a book to read.

What sort of makes it worse, is that when I got taken to a proper hairdressers as a child, it was such a treat - a real haircut. I still carry that feeling of excitement and hope with me to the hairdressers each time I go. It is just so cruel when it is dashed against the cruel snip of scissors and rattle of tin foil.

You know me by now right? I am not complicated. I'm casual about my hair - it is scraped back for everyday, then worn down and straightened for social occasions, usually containing a bit of lighter colour to stop the hair on my head resembling a cowpat, like so:



















Very simple - very straightforward. So WHY, especially with my input (gained from years of bitter experience) would a hairdresser go ahead and do this to me?

Black, dark auburn and a few stripes of a very light, vivid red.

I'm not sure whether the atrocity that now adorns my head is just BIG HAIR or bad hair. I guess that I need to put my head in a bucket and then see how (if) it calms down over the weekend?

What I do know is that I have been given a hairstyle that I will never be able to achieve on my own, even if I wanted to. Actually, that is lucky as I-do-not-want-to-look-like-this-again.

I know my own hair - it kinks and frizzes. So I know that it is going to do its very own bad hair thing all on its own, every day - from now until this thing on my head grows out.

The hairdresser used one of those big cylinder brushes. I have to confess that I gulped when I saw that come out (as I prefer my hair flat and straighened) but I thought (as I'd flinched at the colour when the towel came off) that I'd better see what 'her vision' of the overall effect was.

Truth be told, I may even wail a bit tonight. Then, if I cannot shift my woebegone, upset aspect by Monday, then I will have to call the salon and see if they can put the worst bit of it right for me.

The worst bit?

Well, that will be the very light, vivid reddish blonde blob, right at the front of my head - right against my scalp/hairline.

You cannot see it in the first photo because the hairdresser carefully blow dried the darker layer of hair over it.

In terms of the colour, I think that my comment when the towel came off was (in horror), "That bit at the front is very bright light red, isn't it?"

Apart from it just looking very strange, the regrowth is going to look absolutely foul within about 3 weeks?

Now apparently, I should sweep the 'half fringe' I have been given right across my face, particularly if I am going out glam and socialising?

Apparently this light ginger-blonde is supposed to 'show through' the darker over-fringe bit?

I am not convinced. I don't get to be glam and socialise much. Also, this evening, I twice almost walked into oncoming pedestrians and a road sign, walking across Waterloo Bridge because I could not see them through the glamourous half fringe (not kidding) plus...

...who the flippity flip, gives a floppedy, flying duck about blow drying a sodding overfringe at 6am? I defy you to do it - I defy you to care on a work day, let alone on a rare going out occurance.

Me: shower, wash hair, out shower, scrape back hair, apply scrunchie, dress and go.

Ok, this is my hair after I have used straighteners on it, to kill the big hair and see what the cut is really like.

Before you ask:

- yes, I did ask the lady not to give me any short layers. So why do I see short bits and a whole section of hair missing on one side?

I forecast in-home hair styling disaster.

- yes, I did tell the lady that my hair was far too long (down to my bra strap, as a colleague informed me today). In fact, I don't mind the new, overall shoulder length of it but...what the hell did she do to the front?

- yes, I did tell the lady that I wanted a half head of highlights. Yes, we discussed the fact that the colour on my head was not great, being 50% bleach and 50% tomato sauce stripes with a good 3" or so of roots and yes, I agreed that a semi permanent to tone down the sections of hair in between the foils might be a good idea to make the contrast between the bleach-3" roots look less obvious. The hairdesser described the colours that she was going to apply, as warmer. I thought that would be okay, thinking golds and light browns, as bleach is too stark on my hair. Um, so where did I sign up for black, dark auburn and bright, vivid, light red...?!

Am I alone here? Does anyone else struggle with making themselves understood to hairdressers?

They seem to ignore me (with a canny instinct of knowing that I am too embarassed to make a fuss before leaving the shop) or they think that they know better, what is better for me.

Despite the fact that I have lived with this particular head, and its diabolical hair disasters, for 37 years.

I just hope that my fella will still think me pretty on Valentines Day, despite looking like a hair model fashion victim....sigh.

Edited to add: what is considered a decent brand of hair straighteners in Canada?! My UK ones don't work as they require all 220 volts to operate (I have discovered).