The story began on last Friday. When I got a haircut from hell.
Fastforward to today. I made my way to Monsoon id at 1Utama, with the full knowledge of the Obscene Amount of Money I was going to spend to repair my hair. I swallowed and told myself to take it like a man. As in, keep a brave front and bawl within. Seriously, why isn't it "take it like a woman", when pregnancy obviously tops every other pain that man has to endure?
I reached the salon at five minutes to eleven, a little early for my appointment. The Director led me in, sat me on a chair, gave me a very concise briefing (Your hair will be cut, curled, straightened and dyed. Bye.) and left me there. I had assumed that he would attend to me, because that was the impression that I got when I made the appointment. I assumed wrong.
A guy with his fringe dyed pink came instead. Pinky was friendly and we started to chat a bit. Did he go into the hairdressing business because of interest? Apparently not. He dropped out of college and needed to pay bills. Romantic notions of a creative soul overcoming all odds to succeed in his craft flew out of the window. My hair was not a piece of canvas and would not be a work of art. It was just... hair.
The Director graced me with his presence and chopped off some random locks. Then he was off again.
While my head was attached to a multitude of tangled wires on a hanger-like piece of equipment that looked like it was designed for electrocution, I reflected upon how bizarre everybody in the salon looked. The lady behind me had pieces of aluminium foil all over her head, her hair haphazardly plastered with dye. Then there were the curlers, the upturned fishbowl, and endlessly comical clingwrap head. If you want to ruin the innocence of a man who believes in effortless flowing hair with curls at all the right angles, the hair salon's the place to bring him. He will never see women the same way again.
After applying dye on my head and wrapping clingwrap over it (yeah karma's a bitch), Pinky left, saying that he would come back in 3o minutes. I glanced at my watch. It was 3pm.
Then it was 3:30pm. By 3:45pm I was getting antsy because I was starting to think about the effects of dye on my head for an extended period of time. My skull was probably rich brown by now. Where was bloody Pinky?
Owing to the numerous mirrors within the salon I was able to locate him without moving. He was straightening some guy's hair. A second look revealed that Some Guy was also drop dead gorgeous. My ostensibly gay hairdresser (He had a pink fringe, ok. PINK.) was flirting shamelessly with this guy, probably also gay (He was straightening his hair, ok. STRAIGHTENING.), while my head was being relentlessly marinated within layers of clingwrap.
The next 15 minutes I spent fuming. With the Obscene Amount of Money I was paying, I expected top service, yet the passionless and unprofessional noob was apparently absorbed in canoodling
another client when he was with me. What an act of betrayal. And I know that he knew that I was waiting because he actually stole a peek at me when he thought I was not looking, decided that I wasn't mad yet, and resumed fawning over the other man.
I had to flag another hairstylist, to ask her to remind Pinky about my existence for him to finally come back and unearth my distressed tresses. When he tried to make small talk I gave him curt replies. We were definitely not speaking. That'd teach him.
The end result? The dye looks so 'natural' that I look like I have not dyed my hair, except that my whites have disappeared. I look marginally better than the Haircut from Hell. The Director in his rare onscreen cameos said that after a few washes it will look more natural. The service was impersonal, I felt like a cash cow, don't go to Monsoon id, it's the salon near TGV Cinema on the Skybridge, guten nacht.
Almost 2 years ago I blogged about a trip to the salon as well,
here.
