Cut Your Damn Hair!

I've never really been the type to spend money on beauty extravagances. I get my hair cut maybe twice a year, generally experimenting with a new look each time, I don’t like facials, get bruises from massages, and I didn’t even get a manicure before my senior prom. But somehow, since moving to China it’s as if I’ve become a whole new woman. I purchased my very first hair straightener within weeks of moving here, my massage appointments seem to be increasing exponentially, and I have even started to skip lunch during the week to sneak off and get a midday mani/pedi.

One of my favorite new activities is going to get my hair washed. I know, it sounds a little ridiculous, but don’t knock it ‘til you’ve tried it my friends. On the occasional weekend, after getting dressed and doing our makeup, H (my lone female friend and thus beauty companion) and I grab a couple beers and head to “Super Star” and for a mere RMB 30, get our hair washed, rinsed, blow-dried and styled (I tend to go straight, while H goes for the curls). They even throw in a little massage to relieve the stress of being waited on hand and food … and head.

This being China, of course, even getting your hair washed at the salon isn’t exactly how you might picture it. Instead of leaning back with your hair in a sink, at “Super Star” (and most salons in China) they dump shampoo on your head while you’re in the chair and squirt on water slowly until you have just the right amount of lather. They then proceed to massage your hair into hilariously unflattering shapes until its squeaky clean, all with you sitting up, sipping on your beer, and remaining impressively dry.

Fun right? Well, there is one small catch.

See “Super Star” isn’t exactly the most high-end salon around (hard to tell with a name like “Super Star,” I know), and it seems their electrical set up is a little outdated. H says the power has gone out four times while she’s been there, but she’s generally been just about finished and therefore just paid and headed out. Last time we went, we weren’t so lucky. We had just finished getting all lathered up, both of us had heads full of shampoo and I had just been led over to start my rinse when, BOOM!

Blackout. I blame it on the lady whose hair was so ridiculously long they had to use two blow-driers at once just to have any hope of getting it dry.

This was quite a pickle. My hair was wet and full of suds, and H’s was somewhat resembling a beehive held together with bubbles. There was no electricity, meaning no lights, no more hot water to rinse, and of course, no blow-driers. We were laughing hysterically at the whole situation, much to the relief of the salon workers, but we couldn’t exactly hit up our favorite bars with our current looks. We needed a solution.

“No problem,” they said (speaking Chinese). “We can go down the street to another salon.” Oh good … classy. The hair washers carefully wrap our heads in white towels and hand us our purses, and leaving coats and beers behind, H and I headed outside and proceeded to jog after our hairdressers down about a block-and-a-half to the tiniest little hole in the wall salon I’ve seen. Standing in the back of this maybe 10 sqm establishment were three incredibly angry looking prostitutes, one of which was not pleased she had to vacant her perch on the washing chair so that I could finish my rinse. H and I each took our turns rinsing out the suds, and then sat down in our swivel chairs for blow-dry and styling, which also turned out to be a less than relaxing experience. H’s hairdresser kept getting so distracted by the Chinese soap opera on TV that he would momentarily space out mid-curl, and I was not appreciating the prostitute stink-eye.

I will give “Super Star” some credit for thinking on their toes. Regardless of the power drama, they were still able to make us pretty, and we even managed to get one of the hairdressers to pop back over to the first salon and grab our beers so we could at least numb ourselves to the hilarity a little bit.

I feel like every day I have an experience that leads me to sigh, “Only in China.” Bizarre things like this just don’t seem to happen elsewhere. At this point I’ve seen a lot of crazy sights in Shanghai, and been part of even more. It seems two white girls running down the street with their hair full of shampoo is just another oddity to add to the list. I will definitely be back to “Super Star,” probably soon. Next time I’m just going to have to check out the other customers, and if anyone has hair past their shoulders, I’ll just have to come back another time.