Hair

Oh, it's such a difficult thing - choosing a new hair person when you move. It's actually a bit scary when you have to venture out to a new place - and aggravating to have to begin anew with someone who doesn't know where your part is, how you like your highlights, where you like your bangs to fall.

I can't even tell you how much harder it is to do this in a foreign country. My first Italian haircut was a disaster. The woman actually looked at my hair - blonde and fine - and said to me, "I have seen hair like this before." Well, I hope so - you do hair for a living!

My very last haircut in Italy was amazing. I was so sad that I found an Italian who could do a great job, and I was leaving.

It was definitely time for me to get a haircut, so I mustered up the courage and scheduled an appointment for this morning. I went to a salon that was recommended by the Living in GK website called Aphrodite in the Netherlands. If it were MY website, I would not make the recommendation. Oh wait, I have one! So, here is my NONrecommendation.

I showed up and they didn't have me written down. OK, someone's mistake. There was one really great English-speaker who was able to make total sense to me and who asked great questions and really seemed to get it. She did my color. Even though I explained that I wanted to grow my hair out, did not want layers anymore unless they were subtle and blended, and long bangs, I got the COMPLETE OPPOSITE of all those things. I don't think she managed to convey all my requests to the guy cutting and "styling" my hair.

I was also really annoyed, because I came in and was bombarded with questions the entire time about things that are usually just assumed by other hair stylists. "What color do you want out of this book?" Um, I don't know anything about color. I just don't want brassy highlights. "What is brassy?"

"Do you want us to dry your hair?" "Do you want us to style your hair?" "Do you want mousse in your hair?" I just want you to do my hair with the other requests I made taken into account! The rest is up to you as the hair person!

There was also some hair emergency with me early on where the color was, I guess, "bleeding" into my hair too fast (?) and so they rushed me to the sink to wash it out right away. Then we started over. I was weirded out by that too.

The pro here was that it was a nice place (they constantly asked me what I wanted to drink), and was pretty cheap considering I am paying in euros and it was a nicer salon.

I think I'm trying somewhere else next time. And, at this point, my hair will never grow back out.