Rapunzel speaks

I got a haircut today.  Nothing exciting, just a long overdue trim.  But I’m excited because I think my hairdresser fixed the problem I was having where the front of my hair would curl but the back of my hair wouldn’t because whoever cut my hair last time gave me this blunt bob that was all heavy in the back and wouldn’t curl for shit.  But anyhow.  We have fixed this using layers, and you probably won’t actually be able to notice the difference but I will, oh yes, I will, and it will restore my inner peace (hair-related angst being, naturally, the chief deterrent to attaining inner peace).

This haircut was kind of notable for me because this was the third time I have visited the hair cutting establishment in question.  I have a history of being a bit of a stylist slut.  I rarely go back to the same salon twice.  The reason for this is that somehow hairdressers manage to come off as so much cooler than me and I assume I have made them think I’m an awkward idiot because I’m not good at small talk and also I feel dumb because I obviously don’t know what products to use in my hair at home or, for that matter, what to do with them.  (I am also a product slut and marketer’s nightmare for that reason – god forbid I get the same brand of hair goo more than once.  Of course, this also leads to awkwardness when hairstylists ask what product I’m using and I can’t remember so I make something up.)  Like today, my hairstylist, Max, taught me how to actually use mousse properly.  Who knew.  Anyhow, these days I go to Shorty’s, the gay hipster barbershop here in West Hollywood, and I like it a lot for the following reasons:

1.  I can get a really great haircut for twenty-three dollars.  TWENTY-THREE DOLLARS.  I have not paid twenty-three dollars for a haircut since, like, the early 1990s, and even then it was my mom paying for it!  And this is not a shitty haircut!  This is a really good haircut, complete with “here is how you actually use this hair product that you have been abusing for millenia” tutorial!  I am telling you, that is amazing.

2.  I don’t have to make an appointment.

3.  For some reason they make me feel less stupid than other hairdressers do.

Anyhow, as I was sitting there feeling less dumb than I usually feel when getting my hair done, occurred to me that somebody should start some kind of feminist hair salon (which, depending on where you sit on the spectra of feminisms, might be an oxymoron) where I can go in with my unkempt messy hair and not feel like I’m being judged for being hair stupid.

INTERESTING BONUS FACT:  Every hair stylist that I have seen since moving to Los Angeles has been shocked to learn that my hair colour is, in fact, natural.  Let us pause and consider what this tells us about the City of Los Angeles.