getting your haircut is like voluntary torture

[sheneebo]

Getting one's haircut is always an experience, especially at a swanky salon in Hanoi. At the snazzy salons here, rather than boasting Paul Mitchell or Redken as part of their shampooing line-up, all of them use BEDHEAD products. When you lay your head down on the not so snug neck rest, the water that they spray upon your head is lukewarm. All of a sudden the smell of coconut candy and cream cheese icing invades your olfactory senses as shampoo and then conditioner are squirted directly onto your head. Your head is ineffectively massaged while you have a conversation in broken English with the shampooer. Then they lead you into the chair where you sit for an hour or two staring at yourself in the mirror and wondering what is the most diplomatic face to make. Half-smile, straight face, or classic blank stare. Anyway you cut it you are going to look goofy. Not that he is looking at you anyhow, or at least you hope not. He doesn't speak because he is consentrating so intensely on each individual strand in your forest of hair and when you catch his eye you offer up an unknowing smile, which is returned and then shut off again. He turns away to go back to his business of trimming. He beams at his work and your smile and all is done. His style of cutting is unlike what you've witnessed before, yet it always turns out so devilishly delightful.
End result: something very trendy, very manageable, and very short.
Frizzy, poofy hair. Tight Levis. And does the European kiss-either-cheek greeting, although he is Vietnamese. This is my Vietnamese hairdresser and he is the hippest Vietnamese person I have EVER met. He is funky and fabulous and such a relief to my fashion deprived life. I am totally in love with him, and also with my new do.