A woman and her hair

Now I know that just by writing that small give-word phrase every woman that read the title will have already had images and thoughts flash into her head so fast that she couldn’t have prevented them if she had wanted.

Those of us born blond are kind of o.k. with the color, as are maybe some redheads, some brunettes, some blacks.

However, when it comes to the type of hair that we would like to have, it seems to always be the opposite of what we actually inherited!  Now I think that at birth mine was rather fine and straight, but too many years (we were the 50s/60s you know) of permanents or “perms” as they were known certainly did nothing to improve upon that state of affairs. I can remember my ponytail in grade school being a pretty honey color and just wavy: just as I can remember as though it were yesterday, the school pictures in 80^th grade – I still shudder at the thought and do have a couple of old prints still as proof, however actually allowing the public to see them isn’t going to happen for many years yet – you’ll just have to take my word for it, that when you live in Hawaii, have had a perm the day before and it rains on the way to school, that the resulting pictures were not pretty: probably not even to my parents who would have thought me beautiful regardless.

I have in the past had a great hair cutter: when my hair was short he would thin it and even knew how to deal with the wave in the back. However, he retired and I never found anyone thereafter (and believe me I tried). To the point that I had given up and simply let it grow. Chemo had thinned it enough to allow me to put it up with relative ease (chemo took half and only a quarter grew back: I am probably the only person in the world that found that a benefit!). 

My husband kept wanting me to cut it and I resisted: to the point that when he passed away I felt that it was unfair to then want to cut it, and so it went for many years.  However, with the passing of time – and the thickness of the remaining rope of hair – I began to consider the radical: cutting it to shoulder length from waist length.

My 65^th birthday was the turning point – let’s celebrate and go wild – how? Hmmmm? A trip? A companion? A new car? Anything ?  Nope, decided to cut my hair (you are by now realizing that I did not grow up very radical-minded).

And have never looked back.

Got lucky in that I had two good friends who’s haircuts I had always admired so when I was ready I walked into the hair salon they frequented and talked to Dominique, the owner.

He was probably flabbergasted that someone would walk in off the street, chat a few minutes then request an appointment to “do the deed” just a couple of days later. He kept saying “are you sure”?

So I have since been going to Extra Coiffure, in Geneva Switzerland www.extracoiffure.ch.

Dominique and Janine are the owners – his specialty more the cut, hers more the coloring.

They are both bilingual, one being French the other English. In addition their staff are open, friendly and always do a great job of whatever they are asked to do. One can also get a very good manicure (someday will try the pedicure as well) so I can highly recommend all of them!

And so, to finish this tale of the woman and her hair, when I walk out of there with my straightened as I like it, I feel on top of the world, almost beautiful – what more can one ask of a beauty shop. Merci Dominique, merci Janine!