Hairs

I miss Karena Chop Chop.  She has had control of my hair for the last several years.  Every five to six weeks she would send me a jaunty message, reminding me of my next appointment, so I never had to go around with visible roots and straggly ends.  She would slot me in after work, on my days off, whenever it was convenient for us both.  Her basement salon has quirky things like an Elvis clock with swivel-hipped second hands, a Basset Hound calendar, and a Minnie Pearl Librarian Action Figure.  The computer plays great jazz standards like Ella Fitzgerald.  And Karena herself is a fascinating conversationalist, with lots of pithy opinions and good gossip.  She is quick and has me looking fabulous within an hour and a half.

Now, Albuquerque has more nail and hair salons per capita than I have ever seen.  But they are not cheap, and cheap is what I need right now.  So, after my first $85 appointment at a very trendy salon, I pulled back and tried out the Aveda Institute.  For half the usual price, you get a student to cut and color your hair, under the supervision of one of the teachers.  They use good Aveda products, and are well trained.  However, they don't do color appointments after 3:30, so I have to go in on my day off.  And they take over 3 hours.

And, they are not quirky.  Or at least, not in the NW hipster style I've come to know and love.

It's a tall concrete building, with a blank facade on the busy street.  I pull into the parking lot, filled with Lexuses and BMWs, and park my junker truck next to the wall of floor-to-ceiling windows.   I try to pretend like my truck fits in as I lock up and walk past the windows.  I enter into a soothing atmosphere of trickling water fountain, soft lighting, and the scent of lavender.  The person at the station takes my name and asks if I'd like water or tea.  I tried tea the first time and water the second:  both times it was served in a small white ceramic mug, stenciled simply in pea green:  AVEDA.

From there you go straight into a room of total contrast.  It's a brightly-lit warehouse of steel, glass, mirrors, concrete.  Colors are monochromatic:  black, white, steel-grey.  Techno music fills the background, but despite the pounding rhythms, it does not prevent conversation. You can hear each conversation, echoing through the space, and it's perfectly easy to talk to your student and the teacher.

There are rows of stations, back to back, and side by side, with large aisles between the rows.  The stations consist of a 6 foot tall mirror, centered over a counter placed between two metal cabinets, with three narrow drawers each.   The surfaces have the usual salon accouterments:  hair dryers, combs, scissors, bowls of clips, all neatly displayed on black terry cloth towels.  I never saw anyone use them.  The cabinets have nothing above them, so you can see between the mirrors into the other stations and catch the eye of the customer seated katycorner from you.  You can see the ankles and feet of the customer on the other side, and they can see yours.  It's awkwardly intimate:  you are inches away, you can hear them talking, you can see their feet twitching, but you have no idea who they are.  Today the person on the other side was wearing gold slip-ons, and so was the person working on her.  But I heard a very deep voice, which did not seem to match the feet.  I craned my head around and saw another pair of feet behind them:  big black Keens.  Mystery solved.  I think.

Last time, my stylist was a small 20-something woman, with elaborately braided and bunned blond hair and a Latino last name.  She was heavily made up, very thin, and very silent.  I discovered that she was a month away from graduating and planned to start her own basement salon, like her boyfriend's mother.

This time, my stylist was a very fat young man, with thin black hair pulled back into a straggly ponytail that showed a white scalp beneath.  He wore a black arm brace and had very tiny features, including a rosebud mouth, centered in a large round face.  He was no advertisement for hair styling, but he was sweet and did a good job.  He too is graduating in a month, but he's an accountant and plans to do hairstyling on the side while he goes back to school.  It's just something he's wanted to do since he was young.

Everyone wears long black aprons, black t-shirts, and black jeans or slacks.   Everyone but the teacher is 20-something.  There's a pretty even mix of the sexes.  The girls are all vivacious and painfully thin, with very black eye makeup and long hair.  The boys are not the stereotypical hair dresser:  some are hollow-chested with spiky hair and multiple piercings, but some are beefy, with shaved heads and tattoos.  They too are chatty.  The teacher looks to be in her 60s.  Her skin is a wrinkled orange-white, and her hair is long and bright orange, in a  frizzy poufy 70's style. Most of the clients were like me, older women with conservative style.  Somehow, though, everyone but me seemed to fit in.

When not working on clients, most of the students were practicing on bodiless Styrofoam heads with wigs; but today I saw something truly baffling.  A young man stood in the center of the room, with his arms stretched out to each side.  He was wearing pants, but his torso was draped in a white towel or sheet that left arms, neck, and midriff bare.  His hair was red-brown, teased into an Afro that created a sphere that was at least 4 feet in diameter (including his head.)  His tanned and freckled face was serious, his gaze downward.  One of the students was spraying something on his thin white arms and scrubbing them.  Another was watching, and the teacher stood nearby.  It went on for the entire time it took to wash my hair and come back to my station.

I have no idea what they were doing.

When I left, I went back into the spa atmosphere to pay my bill and tip (which goes into a separate envelope.)  The bathroom featured a large round sink/bowl on top of a concrete slab, cloth towels rolled up in a basket, and a body mist specially mixed to Inspire.

Truly, a schizophrenic experience.  I went home, made a salad, and crashed for the rest of the day.

But, at least my hairs are all red again.