Going the Cruise way…not so easy after all

I am one of those susceptible individuals who get easily impressed by shiny tabloid pics. Every morning, while conducting my morning business in the loo, I survey the morning paper for glossy photographs with the same enthusiasm as a 2 year old scanning the kitchen for a cookie jar. It takes labour and serious pursuit, each page has hidden treasures that must be sought long and hard enough to be acquired. No corner can be left unviewed, for who knows maybe in one of them lay hidden that single secret image of that special under clad woman which would change my life forever. It was during one such tabloid scanning session that I accidentally discovered  Miss Katie Holmes/Cruise’ new, delectable haircut. What gorgeousity it is! I would go and get the cut done as soon as I was over with the bathroom nitty-gritty’s, I promised myself secretly.

Now, to be achingly precise, I am not what one would comfortably call a Beauty Salon person. I do not enjoy strange women tugging at my face and hair or tickling the soles of my feet and then charging me a small fortune for the same atrocities. One hair season melts into another as I niftily shrug off the monthly trims with one clever, constructed excuse after the other.

When I do decide to get myself to a parlour however I prepare myself for it. The military scrutinies I usually face at these establishments have finally put me fiercely on guard. Tired of the head to feet study I usually face at these places (and the giggling and nose crinkling which follows soon after) I have learnt to trim and paint my nails, shave my arms and legs and give my feet a serious scrub before deeming myself fit for a salon. Given that this initial tug-of-war leaves literally little scope for improvement I usually get no more than a eyebrow pluck at the aforementioned establishment.  This time though I skip the details and rush off in a hurry. Gorgeousity must not be kept waiting. The rather clean woman at the front desk hears my query with a trained and to my understanding a rather painful smile. Through that smile (which no doubt her learned superiors had specifically asked her not to falter) she mumbles that indeed the Holmes/Cruise haircut is a splendid act of hairstyling, if I spoke to the head hairdresser then I could also, perhaps, enjoy it on my own head instead of enviously staring at it on someone else’s. I concur.

The head hairdresser, the central star around whom the solar system of the salon revolves with great precision did not take a liking to me, I could tell. She brushes off my request with a flick off her perky little fingernails. “You?” she asks with a scorn which turns me red till my hair roots. “You?” she repeats again, as if the first time wasn’t enough and like she expects me to at least come up with a retort. “Yes” I reply meekly. “No no no no” she says, waving her hands frantically “all wrong”. Hmmmm…. I slowly begin shifting my feet. “Your wave pattern is all ….all haywire”. Whatever that means. I nod obediently and try to appear apologetic. “Now a bob, it needs a straight fall…..while you…you are” here she creases her nose in a most ungainly manner “well…”.

I knew what she meant, which is why I felt a bit guilty. I was not one of those hundred brush strokes a night girl and my hair, being usually uncombed, had a radical streak. It flew and curled and tangled and matted all at its own will. If only I had been Katie Holmes and had drop-dead gorgeous hair…if only i had listened to my mother and had the multivitamins regularly…… 

I was shaken out of my thoughts by the hairdresser. She, I realized, had not taken a break from her discourse despite my inattention. “…and the form….now Miss Holmes is the old school… petite, svelte…while you” here she pauses again, eyes running up and down the length of my well endowed thighs. “But of course styling is all about transforming the ugly duckling” pause “into the swan…the inanimate into the animate…the lifeless into the lively. So a good serum lotion…of course from our own company…a little straightening every morning….(if you don’t have a straightener you can purchase one from our very own store)… a good conditioner…leave in conditioner….wide-toothed comb…fifteen minute flat ironing…salon visit thrice a month…volumizer ……hair gloss for that chic shine….diffuser…great shampoo”. I couldn’t catch a lot of what she said, the shock of the sudden cascade of instructions overwhelmed me. The shock must have been apparent on my face for she turned on that front-desk smile and said helpfully “of course if you can’t manage all of that…and a lot of people can’t…we can provide you a devoted hairstylist, of course she will be using all our hair products…I can quickly type out how much it will all cost you….”. My head was still buzzing. Through the haze i saw her waving an incredible, unimaginable six figure number before my eyes. My heart skipped a beat.

During the course of her lecture I had tried in vain to interrupt and break into a counter sermon preaching the loop holes of body politics, but instead I opened and shut my mouth like a rather foolish fish stuck in an aquarium. Undoubtedly this woman was well-equipped against her critics.I didn’t get the haircut after all. Fortunately the head hairdresser didn’t take the rejection as a personal insult and thus spared me any further humiliation.Next morning as I sat humming on the pot, again scanning for pretty chick pics my heart went out to the clean, combed, shiny divas. Evidently being a brightly varnished, not-one-hair-out-of-place, smiley goddess was real hard work. Not to mention a lot of hair products.