Enzo
This story is loosely based on a real incident told to me by my wife, which I heavily modified. It veers off to be a story of what could have happened, told from her point of view. We hope you enjoy it.
Perms were all the rage, and my best friend had one. It made me want one even more, because my just below the shoulders hair was straight and flat, with no style. After begging my mother to get one, she relented and dropped me off at her salon on a Friday after school.
When I arrived, I told the stylist that I wanted curls. She looked at my hair and asked if I wanted loose curls. I didn’t like the loose curls, so I told her, “No, I want it tighter”.
The stylist then took me to the cutting station, where she washed my hair and combed it out. Then told me I had a lot of dead ends and she was going to cut off them off, or else the curl wouldn’t take. Without agreeing to it, she began sectioning my hair. I then heard the scissors snipping furiously behind me. When she was done, I could see in the mirror that my hair went from just below my shoulders to just above my shoulders. I was a little concerned that it was shorter than I’d planned, but figured it was what I needed for the curls to take.
After the cut, the stylist took me to the perm station and brought out the perm papers and perm rollers. She started taking sections of my hair and wrapping them with paper first, then rolled it around the roller. After every roll, I’d hear the sound of a scissors snip. I just assumed she was trimming off the excess perm paper from the roller, but unknown to me, she was actually snipping off my hair to fit the rollers. She spent a great deal of time wrapping, rolling and snipping my hair.
When she was done, she applied the perm solution. She then put a bag on my head and moved me under a dryer to cook. After 2 hours under the dryer, the stylist came back and took the bag off my head. She started sponge washing my head and rollers, then ran my head under water and removed the paper and rollers from my hair. Once my hair was rinsed, she put a towel on my head and walked me to the styling station.
At the styling station, she towel dried my hair and then used a diffuser to start drying it. As my hair was drying, I could see it that as the curls came to life, my hair was getting shorter, tighter and rounder! By the time the stylist finished drying, my hair had small tight curls that circled my head. The stylist then took out her scissors and trimmed off a few stray hairs, forming a perfect circle, leaving my head looking like a cotton ball.
I left the salon mortified. When I got home, my mom said that I looked cute, but I hated it. I called my best friend to tell her what had happened. She came over and was shocked to see my new hair. She told me her cousin Cathy was a hairdresser and could probably fix it. We called Cathy, told her my issue and set up a time to meet the next day at the salon she worked at.
When I met with Cathy, she was surprised to see how tightly curled my hair was, saying, “You look like a poodle” Depressed, l simply said, “Can you help me?” Cathy told me that she could and assured me I would not look like a dog when I left.
I was brought to a sink where Cathy washed my hair. My hair soaked up the water like a sponge. It was then she realized this was not going to be easy. She applied a liberal amount of curl relaxer, then tried brushing the curls out. She rigorous brushed out the curls, and worked on my hair for an hour until it was smooth. But once it was smooth out, we realized the other stylist essentially chopped all of my hair unevenly. It had looked like my hair was cut by a blind woman.
Cathy looked at my hair from all angles. After assessing the situation, she told me I had 2 choices. Because my hair had so many different lengths, she could try to perm it again and then just wait for it to grow out, but because of my hair length, I would probably have tight curls, and it might look the same as when I walked in. Or, she could try to cut it all the same length, which, would probably be about 2 inches at its longest.
I certainly did not want to walk out looking like a poodle again, nor did I want a 2 inch haircut that made me look like a boy. Cathy thought about it for a minute, then said, “I have an idea. I’m going to do something radical, but you have to trust me”. With no other options left, I agreed to let her do whatever she could to fix it.
Armed with my approval, she pulled out her clippers and started buzzing up the back of my head. My heart sunk as I watched what little hair I had left fall to the cape. She continued buzzing my hair at the back, leaving a small patch at the bottom in the center. She then the moved to the sides, leaving a wispy sideburn at the side.
With the back and sides buzzed to fuzz and the top left longer, she then wet the top of my hair and started to randomly cut off bits and pieces.
When she was finished cutting, she went into her drawer and took out a container marked HAIR CEMENT. She began applying this cream to my hair, making it randomly stick up straight and spiky. She formed my sideburns to a point and created disconnected bangs. To finish the look, she went back into her drawer and pulled out a long hair extension, braiding it into the piece of hair she left at the back, giving me a rat tail.
Once finished, my best friend said to me, “You look totally amazing!” Cathy was pleased with what she’d accomplished, although this was not what I intended, I felt this was better than what I looked like when I walked in.
On my way home, I felt more confident with my new look, but when I arrived home, my mother took one look at me and said “You left the house looking like a cotton ball, and came back looking like a cactus!”
