Cut Your Hair

My dad has paid for and accompanied me all but two of the times I have gotten my hair cut professionally. This started out, because I was too young to drive there by myself, then I didn't have the money, then I didn't want to spend the money, then I didn't want to go alone and deal with something that I'd managed to avoid for twenty years. Here in Copenhagen, I didn't have the option of getting my dad to pay for it, at least not directly. 

Originally, I had resolved before leaving for Denmark that I would avoid getting my hair cut until I flew back to the States.The plan changed after someone accused me of having a mullet. I argued that to have a mullet my hair would have to be longer in the back than in the front, which it clearly wasn't. But even as I fought in defense of my hair, in the back of my mind I was becoming self conscious and desperate for someone to shave my head. 

The next day I took to the streets of downtown in search of a barber. I had tried to put off cutting my hair in Copenhagen because I assumed it would be expensive. My prediction was wrong, I imagined they would charge me something like thirty or forty dollars for the service, when it's actually more likely to cost from eighty to a hundred. Granted, I was in downtown, and I had seen places in Norrebro that were closer to twenty dollars. But I didn't trust want to my hair to a Turkish barber who probably wouldn't understand English.

Three of the salons I walked into told me their outrageous prices for a male hair cut. But, the last one had a deal for me. It was a well-decorated place, with little chandlers hung btwen each set of mirrors from the white ceiling. The walls were painted a sort of dilapidated yellow that looked like it was covering some structural damage. It went well with the lounge music that played to give the place a Mediterranean resort vibe. The staff were all good-looking and dressed in typical Danish fashion: skinny jeans, complex shoes, and artfully applied make-up. There was no way I was going find a deal there, but I was already in the door.

 The beautiful Asian working the register told me I would have to pay 380 DKK (~75 USD). I said "See you later then!" As I walked towards the door, a girl asked if I would be her "model" so she could practice on me during her apprenticeship. I asked how much and the Asian and the apprentice talked briefly in danish until an answer surfaced. 100 DKK, or twenty dollars. It felt like I had won a sweepstakes. A woman working at a cosmetics store I walked into that day in search of salon advice told me that you can sometimes get a good price if you get a stylist-in-training to cut your hair. But I never thought, me!

I arrived for my appointment early, which in Denmark just means that I wasn't fifteen minutes late. The one woman working when I arrived looked to me like she could have been the owner of ZENZ, trendy organic hair salon. She looked to be in her early fifties, with sophisticated crows feet picking out from behind the thick frames of her Buddy Holly glasses. She had dark short hair that looked like it had the same kind of surreal depth that hair only has in shampoo commercials. The woman told me to take a seat and then offer me something to drink. "Would you like some tea or coffee?" I said tea and she proceeded to list off no less than five varieties for me to chose from. I picked the fanciest sounding one and she disappeared in a small crevice. The whole place was no larger than my apartment's common room, leaving it just enough space for eight barber chairs and two wash basins. She came back with a little pot of tea steeping next to a big mug shaped to fit on the bottom.

Marie, the apprentice, arrived I had finished my tea and the sophisticated woman placed the pot in the over-sized cup and brought them back into the crevice. Marie directed me to a wash basin where she shampooed and conditioned my hair. It felt somewhere in between a massage and a doctor's appointment. She dug he fingers into my scalp and rubbed the suds into my hair as she commented on how much dry skin I had and asked how often I washed my hair. I stared at the crystalline chandeller above me blissfully.

She told me she was going to practice pruning my hair into "an Englishman," which is just another variety of the short-on-the-sides-long-on-the-top style that's so popular nowadays. It started out as fun. I was excited to get a hair cut by a professional who didn't work at Cost Cutters. I didn't even care that I had no say over the style. I always hated having to tell the barber what to do, then being responsible for the outcome, which never satisfied me. During the process, she offered to make me a latte, and a realized that eighty dollars for this kind of service was not a rip off. I said yes, of course. 

The only bad part about it was that I had to sit for a full four hours until the process finally ended. My hair was longer than I hoped since I was going for a length that would keep me going until I got back home. But Marie told me she would be cutting it again during the month. Whatadeal! The results are below!:

                   "Mullet"                                                          "Englishman"                                                         "Undercut"