My Luxurious Day at the Spa

Okay, so it wasn't a day, it was two hours.

And it wasn't a spa, it was Fantastic Sam's Hair Salon for Families.

And it wasn't luxurious, because it was, see above, Fantastic Sam's.

But it was an adventure for my Em and me. Last week I started making noises about cutting Em's hair. It's always so fly-away and messy, even if I try to style it, and I was getting tired of worrying about it. Not to mention I was tired of watching Em push it out of her face every two minutes.

When I mentioned cutting bangs for her, my husband's eyes got big. "Bangs? Are you sure you want to do that?"

"Don't you think I'd do a good job?"

"Well...bangs are hard, you know..." he stammered.

"Hmph. Fine, then we'll both go to a salon to get our haircut!" I joked.

"That's a great idea."

Now, you have to understand something about me. I'm not one for frequent hair cuts. Traditionally, I get my haircut once a year, whether it needs it or not. So I don't have someone who is "my" stylist; in fact, I usually go to a new place every single time. It's not like they are going to remember me twelve months later anyway.

And I have unusually thick hair. (As in, crazy huge amounts of hair upon my head, not extra-thick individual strands. Did that make sense?) I have never, ever, EVER had a haircut without the stylist commenting, multiple times, about the thickness of my mane.

I have also never once had a haircut turn out the way I asked. I have been to expensive (well, expensive to me at least, +$50 haircuts) stylists, cheap stylists, student stylists, and I have never come out of a haircut thinking, "All right! That's exactly what I wanted!" Is this because I salon-hop? Is it because I have abnormal hair? Is it because I can't communicate my wishes?

Who knows?

Back to our story. My friend had recently received a nice haircut at the Fantastic Sam's in Springville, so Em and I decided to go there. We arrived about five minutes early, and spent the time looking at books of hairstyles--only Em didn't realize the point of the book, and kept commenting on the model's clothes. That's my girl!

Em went first, and I discussed what I wanted for her--about an inch below the earlobes, with bangs, no big deal. Em enjoyed the shampoo--no water in her eyes!--and was very good with the stylist. With her in good hands, it was time to get my hair done.

I explained what I wanted: I didn't like my old haircut, and was particularly annoyed with the unevenness of the layers. Please trim an inch off the bottoms, and then even up the layers. I want to grow my hair out, so please don't take too much off the bottom. Oh, and it has been more than a year since I last had it thinned, so that would be nice, too.

TWO HOURS LATER, I am looking at my finished hair in the mirror, and thinking, "What is it about "no uneven layers" did you not understand?" I realized she had given me a very popular style of cut, but wildly uneven layers were something I explicitly asked to avoid. By now, though, Em has been done with her cut for 90 minutes, and is bored out of her gourd. (I forgot to mention that with great hair comes great amounts of time in the stylist's chair. I don't think I have ever had a haircut last less than one hour, and usually we're in the 90-120 minute range.)

So I smiled, paid our bill, left a nice tip, and left.

And sighed. I'm over crying about bad haircuts. Usually once I have a chance to play with it myself, I can find a good style I can live with.

But I'm not ready to put up a picture yet.

P.S. But I will get one of Em. She is adorable, and looks very much like Ramona Quimbly, Age 8. Or perhaps Matilda, in the movie. Very very cute. And she loves her new hairstyle very much.