Hidemi Woods

I had a haircut at the beauty salon after an interval of eleven months. I’m not a big fan of a beauty salon.

It’s too time-consuming and inefficient. It takes two hours for a haircut, with hairdressers hearing a customer’s desired style at a different space, washing hair twice, damping hair again for a set after drying it completely, serving a cup of tea, adjusting the style over and over, etc. My hair was very long and I wanted it to be much shorter. But the hairdresser was quite reluctant to cut that much and I had to ask twice to get it shorter. A different hairdresser was in charge of drying my hair before my hairdresser came for hairstyling. She talked to me at the same volume whether a hairdryer was on or not, which meant I couldn’t hear her while the hairdryer was on. I got tired of asking again after a few attempts and just nodded to whatever she was talking about.

The best thing at the beauty salon for me is the magazine they put in front of me. I’m not interested in the contents, but in the kind. They usually select for me the magazines targeted at much younger readers than I am. That makes me feel good because it means I look younger for my actual age. I’ve boasted it for years. But this time, they selected the ones targeted at my actual age group. Also, they asked me if I apply gray hair coloring at home. My glorious days of looking younger are finally gone…

Episode From Surviving in Japan by Hidemi Woods