Urban Drool

Now I know.

Now I understand.

Never before did I really comprehend why women would spend hundreds of dollars and hours and hours of precious time going to high-end salons and getting high-end treatments for their hair, skin and nails.

Um, wow. Why did nobody tell me of this sooner? Was this some great secret of womanhood that, for some reason, was kept from me? (answer=very possibly. After all Lumi, are you or are you NOT a woman who will slap a little scented body lotion from WalMart on her face as a “moisturizer” when no face cream is about?)

My mother recently got me a gift certificate to a salon in a nearby town. This is a salon that specializes in the care of very long hair. In other words, right up my alley. I went there, a little unsure of what to expect or how to comport myself. Would they mind if (when) I yelled “Ah, fuck” when I stumbled over the artfully placed antique wooden sidetable with the zen healing water fountain spraying merry droplets of lavender-infused water everywhere?

But I arrived. Immediately upon my entering, Lance, the loveliest of lovely long-hair-care specialists, took my coat and purse and led me to my chair. And we had a long talk, he and I, about what to do with this unless horse’s mane on top of my head.

Tilting his head to the side and squinting with one eye he declared me in need of a 2 hour hot-cap treatment, followed 3-4 weeks later by a trim and shape up. I mutely nodded my assent. After all, you don’t argue with Lance.

He led me to the shampoo chair and told me to close my eyes. I entered a weird state of kinda-sleep-kinda-meditation, coming to only occasionally when Lance would quietly mutter in my ear what he was doing exactly.

“..I am first washing your hair with a clarifying eucalyptus cleanser…I am now using an orange and mango wash to prepare the hair shafts to receive the protein mud pack…

{heading back to my chair}

…now we are going to put on the mud pack…I’m wrapping your hair around itself on top of your head like a crown so I can fit the heated cap on top to ensure that the blah blah blah effectively blah blah dee dooo…”

What the hell did I care what he was doing? It felt amazing and I felt amazing and there was NO husband to entertain and NO baby to nurse or wipe sluge off of and I hadn’t felt this relaxed and pampered in almost 2 years. Lance could stuff my belly buttons with pimentos for all I cared, if it meant this lovely warm feeling spreading through me would continue.

I had to sit in a leather backed, uber-comfy chair for an hour (oh darn!) while the whatevers melted into my hair and did their whatevers. Lance brought me an assortment of Reader’s Digest, People, and Us. Did you know that Britney Spears went to a shop in LA called “Trashy Lingerie” and brought a little outfit for the benefit of her new boy toy? And, ironically enough, it’s considered “not at all trashy!!” ??

I did.

Lance asked me what I wished to drink. Bottled water? Hot tea? Coffee? Cocoa? He brought me a selection of different flavors of cocoa so that I could choose.

People, Lance brought me my cell phone when I heard it ringing and couldn’t reach it, for trapped in my leather chair was I.

Wow.

Sadly, my hour with the plant enzymes was over all too soon and Lance washed me, conditioned me, and used a “lovely avocado-based shine-booster rinse.” He blew my hair dry, one small piece at a time, sprayed my long tresses all over with something that smelled like a Caribbean vacation and then guided me over to the full length mirror and handed me a small mirror so I could see the length of the back of my hair and what he had accomplished.

Dayyy-um.

I walked out of there with instructions to not wash my hair for 72 hours to “allow the cuticles to seal” and to make an appointment in 3-4 weeks for a trim and shape up.

He recommends this 2 hour treatment to be done 3-4 times a year and you can bet that I’m counting down the days until I can have it done again.

Why did no one tell me? My hair looks incredible today. I have NEVER been able to get my hair to look the way it looks today. Now, I know in a few days, it will not look nearly as magnificent as it does right now, but I SO DON’T CARE!!

I am forever changed. I apologize profusely to all those women whom I ridiculed, either out loud or under my breath, for “buying stupid crap” and “going to snobby salons” just so they could “look like a million bucks.”

Know what folks? If I do indeed get a refund on my Federal Taxes this year, I am SO heading back to Lance and buying absolutely anything and everything that he tells me I need to buy.

…after I pay the electric bill and buy more diapers for the baby.

Sigh.

The End.