I went to get my hair cut yesterday for free at a shi-shi salon. Exposed brick, funky decor, and a gaggle of stylists wearing flip flops and sunglasses and anything that would generally make them look as if they had walked out of a fashion magazine. And of course, every one of them had feisty, layered, stylin' hair. The girl cutting my hair was a petite, dark-haired beauty sporting incredibly shiny lip gloss and slightly preoccupied by her upcoming move to Lincoln Park - she's moving in with a friend she grew up with in the suburbs.
I grant you, having your hair wet down and plastered to your head while someone cuts it is rarely a good look for anyone, but I started to feel a little insecure, surrounded by these uber fashionable girls wearing the latest tube tops and gossiping about movie stars and Eva Longoria. I hate wearing flip flops. I've got too much chest to keep a tube top in place. Lip gloss is wasted on me as it inevitably ends up all over everything but my lips (my hair, my fingernails, papers I handle...). I have, in barber's chairs, a large neck. It distracts me. Also, a wide face. Somehow, outside of the salon, things blend and never bother me, but when I'm having my hair cut I worry about my tremendously wide neck and face. Bye, bye, Hollywood, you wouldn't be able to use this sagging flesh. I have lines on my forehead nowadays, too, which I suppose is normal for someone who is 31, but those lines are still a shock, every time I see them.
The two stylists I can see very clearly in the mirror behind me (who have been gossiping about their drunken night on the town) have clearly come in early so that one can dye the other's hair. The application of the dye looks truly complicated, all these small sections wrapped intricately in tin foil, and then more dye applied to the straggling hair that escaped the sectioning. And wait - I suddenly notice that the woman whose hair is plastered against her head with dye looks dreadful - that indeed, she appears to have a very large neck.
It occurs to me that I am in Chicago. Probably most of these women are from the suburbs, and have moved into the city in a desperate attempt to wash that Middle America right out of their hair. I'm making a big generalization, but I'm guessing not all of them went to college, that they've never lived anywhere except Aurora before moving to Wrigleyville. They HAVE to dress like this, and have their hair cut wildly and use lots of styling products, they have to use glamour to remove themselves from the average, colourless existence they left behind.
I'm originally a small town girl myself, I admit it, but I've lived in a series of difference places of varying size, and Chicago isn't the largest. I am, at this point, a City Girl. No matter what I wear. Or how my hair is styled. I don't have to work at it.
Although, with a little product and a blow dryer, I have to tell you, it looks FABULOUS. I might start wearing eyeshadow. If the next issue of Cosmopolitan tells me it's still cool.
