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Hairdressing salon as family salon. The children play between the women’s bodies. At times, the women cajole, scold, or punish. Then the games resume: hide-and-seek or marble competitions. Miniature cars avoid the freshly cut hair. Kids slide down to retrieve a trinket that has rolled under the chairs. Sometimes a customer’s dog waits to be petted. The coffee flows and the laughter is loud, no different from a house visit. Exchanges are messy. We share recipes and tips. The latest news, congratulations, condolences. Some gossip too, in an atmosphere of good-natured mischief. The welcome feels like a family reunion: we have known each other a long time, we have seen our young grow up, our lives change, our heads turn grey.
Some women arrive early—you never know, the previous appointment may be cancelled. Cancelled by those who give up their place, who insist, please go ahead, I’m not in a hurry this morning. Others show up unexpectedly and wait, stubborn, deaf to the hairdresser’s clear answers, I’m completely full, I can’t do it today, impossible, come back tomorrow! They beg him as if their lives depended on the blow-dry on that specific day.
The flow is not facilitated by the availability of appointments, which are themselves often limited to pre-determined slots of available electricity at certain times of the day. We hear the same answers, between 8 a.m. and 12 p.m. or after 4 p.m., to be sure to have power. Other incidents that can disrupt the day’s schedule: hot water that turns cold, panic at a suddenly empty tank. How do we rinse the color? Collective laughter defuses the drama. There is always an emergency water basin in the back room. Or other solutions to think up. We are experienced, we improvise.
Hairdressing salon as tea room. Women meet, neighbors chat, cakes circulate. Those who wait observe and converse. Others take advantage of the opportunity for a manicure, an eyebrow plucking. Some flick their lighters, exclaiming, when no one complains about the cigarette smoke, a few puffs, just a few puffs, wow we are not in Europe here!
The tone often intensifies, becomes passionate with political discussions, even when the customers are in agreement. We cut each other off, talk over each other, lose the thread. The situation of the country, endless conflicts, dubious “international” positions… then the sparring resumes systematically, between two silences. The information of the district also, confidences and humor. Sometimes the mood takes on the air of a song, it mirrors the talk. Moments of public intimacy. We call each other by affectionate diminutives to mark this connection, Joujou, Sammo, Mimi… the very diminutives that we’d never use outside this space.
Hairdressing salon as showroom. The pleasure of listening, analyzing, and watching, numbed by the noise of the hairdryers, by the warm atmosphere. By the smells of hairspray, of coloring. By the muted radio songs or by the austere tone of journalists when it’s time for the daily news. It’s a show with immersive scenes, since we participate in them, intervening without being asked, this balayage really suits you! Commenting on the hairdresser’s gestures, giving him pointers, recalling with nostalgia previous cuts.
Hairdressing salon as psychologist’s office. You tell your life story when entrusting your hair, as if softened by the care, the trace of the massaging fingers, coaxing you to abandon all resistance. Group therapy sometimes, when benevolent mouths get involved, giving advice and analysis, brimming with improvised wisdom. Whatever the relevance or the awkwardness of the interventions, one comes out of it washed, temporarily appeased by this moment for oneself, without the seriousness of real therapy. Confidence restored thanks to the physical transformation but also thanks to the satisfaction born of flawless complicity.
Hair salon as luxury home. The great hairdressers for the great occasions, weddings, or official ceremonies. Exorbitant prices accepted as necessary sacrifices. The sirens of metamorphosis, are you sure you don’t want to try? Straight hair would look so good on you!
Hair salon as home salon, when the neighborhood hairdresser comes to your home. The whole family attends, group rates like the SNCF cards. Sometimes the hairdresser stays for lunch when he doesn’t have to rush off to other delayed appointments.
Hairdressing salon as a space of solidarity when prices are not displayed on purpose, to spare the dignity of the most destitute, served at reduced prices in all discretion.
And I think of the unequalled sweetness of some expressions so common as yaatik alf aafyé*, and khaliya alayna**.
* Said as an encouragement to people doing strenuous, time-consuming, or intense physical work.
** It’s on us.