I got a haircut today – my first in Michigan.  Before today, I hadn’t been for a haircut in about four months.  I think the long time span between cuts is fairly common for women.  We know the reasons.  Haircuts are expensive, and we all have favorite stylists that reside in salons nowhere near where we currently live.  We schedule haircuts in time with trips to places we used to call home, places where we have no problem paying $65 (cut only – I’m leaving highlights out of this) for a trusted hand to give us face-framing layers.

In between cuts, my head gains five pounds. My hair grows fast and by some grace of genetics I have about twice as many hair follicles in the mohawk zone of my head than on the sides.  You’d never know this unless you saw baby pictures of me where said mohawk filled in before anything else decided to grow.  My parents say they used to call me Cochise, after the Apache Indian leader, but I have yet to find a picture of the actual Cochise with a mohawk.  Historically accurate or not, my head had been exploding with hair, especially in the mohawk zone, for the last month.  As of 10am this morning I had no flights to Boston booked in the near future and decided I needed to brave a visit to Illusions.  No, wait: Innovations.  Maybe it was: Ideations?

Hair-Portraits of First Ladies by Christina Christoforou, NYTimes

Red flag: I called at 10am and was able to get an appointment at noon.

Red flag ignored.

Red flag: I arrive at the salon and don’t have to wait for my stylist to finish up with someone else.

Red flag ignored.

Red flag: Stylist may or may not still be in high school.

Red flag deliberately ignored because of my own age-bias experiences – topic for another time.

Haircut commences and proceeds through the standard phases: (1) initial wash and chat, (2) comb out and realization that you have no common topics to talk about, (3) cut and dig for any question to break the awkward silence, and (4) amazingly long dry and fluff where at least the hairdryer noise fills the void of conversation.

When it was all over, I ventured a look, fully expecting that I would look weird today but after two days of growth things would fall into place.  To my surprise, I looked good! Pleased and proud of myself for making it this far, I stepped out from under the cape, through the weight I’d shed on the floor, and up to the counter to pay.  Now, I didn’t ask the cost of a cut beforehand, and would not have blinked if she told me it was anything up to $70.  I would have been pleasantly surprised at $45.  Are you ready?

Twenty-three dollars.

Go ahead and read it again.

I had to jut my chin out to hear her say it twice, and then left her with just about a 50%  tip as it just didn’t feel like I’d paid enough. The experience left me feeling good about the Midwest, but wondering who was actually innovating (the salon name was, in fact, Innovations) on the haircut experience.  I recalled a piece in a couple years old Metropolis magazine about a place called Rudy’s that I’ve always wanted to try.  Admittedly, the only reason I remember this article is that the magazine has sat in the bathroom that my sister and I used to share at my parents house for the last few years.  If we aren’t home and visiting, nobody uses that bathroom, so the reading material rarely rotates.  The well-read Metropolis and the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy hold court.

Who else is innovating on the haircut experience? How much does a haircut cost where you live? Have you ever had a haircut that wasn’t awkward?  Men, does any of this resonate with you?  I’d love to design a salon – give a holler if you want to open one.