Some of you may have read a previous post about my continual hair disasters here in China. Following the many disasters I decided to pay that bit more and use the hairdresser that my blonde highlighted colleagues use in Shanghai. This for me involves some forward planning as I normally don't decided that my hair needs doing urgently until the very last minute and beg for an appointment that same week.
So, I booked an appointment 3 weeks in advance and headed into Shanghai for hopefully some hair salvation that was likely to bankrupt me. I had my directions on a piece of paper and a hideous new umbrella from the train station as mine blew inside out earlier. I found the Salon easily and stepped inside.
On arrival I was "greeted" by the owner who brusquely asked who I was, told me that the person I had booked with hadn't shown up, didn't want to do my consultation, told me that they would somehow "make it work" and directed me to a chair. Mere seconds after I sat down he went to work on another client and quite happily announced that he had a hangover and was wearing the clothes he had slept in. The alarm bells began to ring in my head. I am about to allow a man with a hangover and slept in clothes to touch my hair! Whilst furiously sending messages to friends that have been to the salon a little voice in my head is screaming at me to stand up and walk out. Two things kept me in the chair. The first thing was that my roots were looking really bad and the second was the scene that I would have created with so many other people there.
After 45 minutes I eventually got some form of consultation. He was certainly rushing as he was working on 3-4 clients at once. He did part of my colour and then moved onto another client whilst the most junior employee was asked to do the next stage, however he couldn't speak English and he got another employee to translate. Thankfully the owner checked and discovered it had been done wrong.
As I was there for such a long time they offered to order my lunch. I had my favourite Vietnamese Baguette from B Real on Fu Min Lu. My lunch arrived promptly but was sadly accompanied by some Salon conversations that returned to the owners new products that he is making and selling at a trade fair in Hong Kong next week. I probably heard about these products 4 times in my 5 hour stint in the hairdressers.
The end result is not really what I asked for, but it was a major iprovement on my previous experiences and the cut was really well done. In the future I would like to think that I can have a hair appointment that does not involve people with hangovers, lack of skills, patchy colour or being hit on the head by a hairdryer.
No comments:
Post a Comment